PERSONAL ITEMS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 June 1924, Page 4

PERSONAL ITEMS.

—♦ Mr G. Holmes, M.S.C.B. Agr., has been appointed to the staff of the Hawera Technical High School to teach science and agriculture. Mr Holmes has had a distinguished academic career, and has specialised in agriculture and dairying at Lincoln College. Mr. J. H. Upton, Auckland, has resigned from the directorate of the Bank of New Zealand, and Cabinet has decided to appoint Mr. Oliver Nicholson, also of Auckland, to take his place. Mr. Nicholson is a well-known and influential barrister and solicitor of Auckland, a man of great financial ability, and a prominent figure in the business life of the northern city. He is chairman of directors of the New Zealand Insurance Company and a vicepresident of the Auckland Savings Bank. Mr. Nicholson, who was also Mayor of the Borough of Mount Eden for many years, and in one election unsuccessfully contested the Grey Lynn seat with the Hon. George Fowlds in the Refonn interest. There is no doubt that his appointment would strengthen the Bank of New Zealand directorate materially. The death has occurred at the Wairau hospital of George Oakland, an old man whose life was full of adventure (states the Christchurch Press). Born at Devizes, Wiltshire. England, fiearly seventy years ago, he, • when quite a young man, threw in his lot with a party of idealists, who chartered a ship and were allotted a large area of land in Paraguay, South America, in order to found a Socialistic community there. This, however, proved a short-lived paradise, owing to internal dissensions and privations, which caused the colony to break up. For many years he wandered about the various South American States, principally working on the sugar plantations near the Parana River, which divides Paraguay from Argentina. Ultimately he went "to Asutralia, and later was attracted to New Zealand by reports of gold finds on the West Coast, and, as elsewhere, lost no time in exploring the rest of the country. His estate is being administered by the Public Trustee, and amongst other possessions are documents in Spanish, indicating that he was the purchaser of a number of sections in one of the Paraguay towns in its earlv davs.