PERSONAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 68, 19 February 1932, Page 6

PERSONAL

The friends of 'Mr J. B. Cooper, president of the Manawatu Scottiatt Society, will regret to learn tha has found it neoessary to enter private hospital. _ Lieutenant-Colonel G. Lyon, M- •> left Wellington for Waipukurau yesterday to attend the “snoot of 7th Battery, N.Z.V.F.A. (Palmerston North), which is in camp.

Lord Rutherford, of Nelson, continues to add letters to his name an collect new honours. The university o Gottingen has just conferred the degree of doctor (honoris causa) upon Lord Rutherford, who recently lectured in Berlin.

Lord Wemyss, Captain SinclairThompson, the newly-appointed second naval member of the Naval Board, and Sir William Ellis, a noted English engineer, are among the passengers on the Rangitiki, which arrived at Wellington last night.

Major P. Kerr-Smiley, of _Larne, Belfast, who was a member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for 14 years, arrived at Auckland from Sydney this week. He will go to the Bay of islands for big-game fishing and will remain in New Zealand for about six weeks.

Mr Louis Beale, who was so pop l )' lar in New Zealand when he was His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner, has, since leaving the Dominion, moved steadily upward (writes a London correspondent). He left the Department .of Overseas Trade to set the Travel Association going, and, having got it running, he is now engaged in special trade missions and leaves shortly to take up an important commercial post in the Far East. A veteran of. Australian politics, Sir George Fuller, who is keenly interested in Mr Norman Smith’s attempts on land speed records at Ninety Milo Beach, arrived at Auckland from Sydney this week. Sir George Fuller was elected to Parliament in ’ New South Wales in 1889 and from 1922 to 1926 he was Nationalist Premier of the State. He became a, member of the first Federal Parliament in 1901 and held office for 12 years. From 1928 until April last year he was AgentGeneral for New South Wales in London. Sir George stated that he had been asked to return to politics, but at the present time he had no intention of doing so. Sergeant-Major Edwin Bezar, of Wellington, celebrated his 94th birthday. yesterday. He was born in Wiltshire in 1838, and joined the 62nd Wiltshire Regiment in January, 1855, when he was only 17 years of age. After serving in the Crimea with his regiment, he was transferred in March, 1866, to the 57th Regiment, known as tne “Die Hards,” and the following year he was one of the two hundred men sent from Malta to Aden when the Indian Mutiny broke out. In March, 1860, he rejoined the regiment in India, and the same year he sailed with the “Die Hards” for New Zealand, landing in January, 1861, and taking palt in all the engagements of tne regiment in the Maori War. On the recall of the “Die Hards” to England in 1866, SergeantMajor Bezar took his discharge as colour-sergeant and settled in the Dominion. After many years of service in the Defence Department, he resigned his position in 1892, and has since lived in Wellington. The death 'occurred at Queenstown yesterday of Mr Ernest Page Lee, who was Minister of Justice in the last Massey Cabinet, and one of the most prominent legal practitioners in the South Island. Deceased had been on a pleasure trip to. Wakatipu when he was stricken with a seizure about three weeks ago. Tly> career of the late Mr Lee included long service on local bodies, while he represented the Oamaru constituency in Parliament for a long period. Born in Teignmouth, England, in 1862, Mr'Lee married Miss Winifred de Lambert, of Oamaru. He was educated at Cheltenham and London, and studied law, being admitted to the Bar in 1885. He commenced practice at Oamaru the following year, eventually founding the firm of Lee, Grave and Grave. Mr Lee won the Oamaru seat in 1911 from Hon. Mr Duncan. In 1916 he visited the Western Front with the Parliamentary delegation. He was appointed Minister of Justice in 1920, but was defeated at the general election of 1922 by Mr J. A. MacPherson. He regained the seat in 1925, but again lost it to Mr MacPherson in 1928. He was for a time Chairman of Committees in the House and for a long period chairman of the Waitaki High Schools Board of Governors. He was a staunch advocate of the. junior high school system, which he lived to. see firmly established in the district. He was one of the earliest members of the Oamaru Jockey Club, and an alpinist of note,. having climbed many of the highest peaks of the Southern Alps. Mr Lee is survived by a widow.