RED CROSS

Grey River Argus, 17 September 1937, Page 7

RED CROSS

Junior Movement INTERNATIONAL UNDERSECRETARY’S VISIT. Arriving next Monday at Auckland, Mr. Lewis de Gielgud, Under-Secre-tary of the League of Red Cross Societies, will on October 2 arrive on the West Coast, where, after visiting the Glaciers, he will address at Greymouth on Monday, October 4, a meeting of those interested in the Red Cross Movement, when it is hoped that there will be a large attendance. On Thursday next, Mr. Gielgud will be welcomed by the N.Z. Red Cross Society headquarters in Wellington, the Governor-General presiding. Mr. Gielgud, who has just attended the Junior Red Cross Conference in Japan, will visit all of the New Zealand main centres. He has been Un-der-Secretary-General for the International Red Cross League for nearly ten years, and a member of the Secretariat since 1919. when the League was founded. Mr. Gielgud will bring to the study of Red Cross work in New Zealand an experience of Red Cross work in other countries stretching over eighteen years, and covering practically every Red Cross in Europe and Asia, as well as the U.S.A. His visit to New Zealand will be made in the course of the fourth tour he has made round the world in the service of Red Cross. His work has lain mainly in assisting national Societies in the solution of their organisation problems, and in the arrangement of conferences. He was, in particular, largely responsible for the work in connection with the XVth. International Red Cross Conference held at Tokyo in 1934. Other centres in which he has been associated in the organisation of Red Cross Conferences include London. Paris. Brussels. Warsaw, and Bangkok. Born in 1594 and educated at Eton and Magdalen College. Oxford. Mr Gielgud served throughout the war. being seriously wounded in France in September, 1915, and subsequently holding staff appointments. He wai decorated for war services by tl

British, French, Roumanian and Yugoslav Governments, and also holds the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, in addition to numerous Red Cross decorations. Mr. Gielgud, who is of Polish descent, is a brother of John Gielgud, Ihe well-known English actor, and of Vai Gielgud, Director of Dramatic Productions in the 8.8. C. His grandmother on his mother’s side, was a sister of Ellen Terry, and he has recently formed yet another link with the theatrical world through his marriage, celebrated in Budapest in June, to Miss Zita Gordon, who enjoys. a considerable reputation for brilliant stage and screen work in Hungary. Mrs. Gielgud, who will come to New Zealand with her husband, shares with him a taste for writing as a sideline. Mr. Gielgud is the author of a number of novels and plays, and also a book of travel, entitled “About it and About,” published in 1928, in which he described his first circuit of the globe from the unusual angle of a Red Cross man visiting Red Cross institutions throughout the world.