SUPREME COURT JUDGE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 93, 3 April 1934, Page 6

SUPREME COURT JUDGE

Mr. A. Fair to be Appointed NOTABLE LEGAL CAREER <Bj Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, April 2. Mr. A. Fair K.C., Solicitor-General, will be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in succession to his Honour Mi. Justice MacGregor, who is due to retire on April 14. An official announcement of Mr. Fair’s appointment to the Bench will be made shortly. Mr. Arthur Fair was born in the mining settlement of Charleston, near Westport, on the West Coast, and is the fourth son of the late James William Fair, who settled there in 1865, and carried on a drapery business until the alluvial gold gave out, when the business was transferred to Westport. Mr. Fair received his early education at the Charleston Primary School. Obtaining an education board scholarship, ho went to Nelson College, and entered Victoria University College in 1904, at the same time going into the service of Messrs. Skerrett and Wylie. He had a brilliant scholastic and university career, and secured the LL.B, degree at the age of 21 years, being admitted in the same year to practice as a barrister of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. When the war broke out Mr. Fair had been spending six months in England. He enlisted in Kitchener’s Army, and was awarded a commission with the Suffolk Regiment, with which he served on the Suez Canal, and in the Sinai and Palestine campaigns until 1919. He won the Military Cross in the big engagement of September 19, 1918, when ovi. 100,000 Turks were captured by the British forces. He returned to New Zealand in October, 1919, and commenced practice at Wellington at the beginning of 1920. In March, 1921, he was appointed Crown Solicitor, in succession to Mr. P. S. K. Macassey on the latter’s appointment as Crown Prosecutor, and in 1925 he was appointed Solicitor-General.

Mr. Fair’s activities in private life have been devoted mainly to the interests of returned soldiers. He has been a member of Victoria University College Council since 1924. He is an ex-president of the Victoria University Graduates’ Association. In 1923, Mr. Fair married the second daughter of Dr. C. E. Adams, F.R.S., Government Astronomer.