HUIL ONSLOW A MEMOIR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18897, 20 December 1924, Page 24 (Supplement)

HUIL ONSLOW A MEMOIR

SUFFERER AND SCIENTIST. A biography of intimat-e wtersst to many New Zealanders has oeen issued 'by Messrs. Edward Arnold and Co., London, under the title "Huia Onslow: A .Memoir." Its writer is his widow, whom he married early in 1919, when he was 29. Her brief wedded life was broken by his death in 1922, and in this memoir she gathers lovingly the main facts, of his unusual career. About Huia Onslow many people in this land remember particularly two things. One was his birth, the first occasion on which a child of a Governor of New Zealand was born her 3. The event was honoured in the giving of "Huia" as one of the boy's names, and the ceremonial making of him a member of the Ngcitihuia tribe at Otaki. The other was the tragic accident in the Tyrol that robbed him of physical health and strength. Almost completely paralysed, he nevertheless made magnificent use of the remaining ten years of his life. Devoting himself to scientific research, and contriving to prosecute it with unfailing skill and patience, although he was confined to a wheeled couch for all those years,, he carried out highly important investigations in chemistry, physics, bacteriology, and natural history. Many of these investigations were the subject of contributions to learned societies and scientific publications. There were poems, too, and popular articles. His industry was marvellous, his courage 'invincible. He lived as brave a' life as ever any man did in the firing-line, whither ho fain would have gone, and left a record that is lustred with fine achievement despite terrible odds. With admirable insight and unfailing good faste, his widow, who shared his scientific enthusiasm as a fellow-expert, tells a. story that is at once pathetic and inspiring.