TWO GOOD ENGLISHMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 March 1928, Page 8

TWO GOOD ENGLISHMEN

SALVAGE AND SCHOOL.

There has just died, within a day or two of each other, two Englishmen whose outstanding courage, integrity, and forcefulness of character cannot have failed to command the respect, admiration, and staunch loyalty of all who came under their influence. Their work will remain when their names are forgotten (says the ‘Daily Telegraph’). English sailors all over the world will be deploring the loss of Sir Frederic Young, better known to them as Captain Young, of Liverpool, who, in addition to salving £50,000,000 worth of cargo from the bottom of the sea, saved the lives of forty-three seamen after they had been entombed in the submarine Kl 3 for 56 hours. In spite of the fact that he was approaching his sixtieth birthday when war broke out, he immediately took over and organised the whole of the Salvage Section of the Admiralty. It was he who brought in the first German submarine, refloated battleships, and lifted 18 ships, including Vindictive, Thetis, and Iphigenia from Zeebrugge Harbour. Among our war heroes this commodore, of whom the general public knew next to nothing, takes a very high place. Much less spectacular, but equally influential in a very different sphere, was the career of Godfrey Mohun Carey, familiarly known as “John” to generations of Rugby football players in general and to old Shc-rburnians in particular. The death of this famous Sherborne housemaster at the early age of 55 deprives the country of one of the most remarkable schoolmasters of our time.

A man of super-human energy, rigid determination, and severe discipline, John Carey, who lived entirely in and for his old school, within a space of 30 years bad evolved a type of boy modelled closely on himself, who went out into the. world fully armed physically and morally to withstand any attempt to tamper with his high standard of ideals.

The Carey influence was quietly but persistently permeating an ever-wider area, and every old boy of this famous school seemed to be stamped with the Carey die. The commodore and the schoolmaster supply, in their unsparing dedication of themselves to an ideal of thoroughness, the very keystone that makes our English arch so stable.

With no thought whatever of public recognition, they throw themselves heart and soul into the vocation to which they are called, and death finds them still struggling in the dusty arena, perfect gentle knights without fear, without any shadow of a stain on their honor, intent only on bringing to perfection the Herculean labor they entered upon in youth. It is just because the supply of those sons of Martha,’ happy warriors who care nothing for reward or recognition. is in no danger of failing that we face the future with such equanimity. With Mr Standfast and Mr Valiant-for-Truth still in our midst, it is unthinkable that the banner of England will ever be lowered.