CAREER IN DOMINION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20766, 8 January 1931, Page 9

CAREER IN DOMINION.

POSED AS A CAPTAIN.

INCIDENTS IN AUCKLAND

The cable message seems to identify "Gerald Crichton" with one Herbert William Upjohn, who was in New Zealand in 1925 and 1926. He became notorious in several of the New Zealand cities and was ultimately sentenced in Wellington to two years' detention in a Borstal institute on four charges of false pretences. It was said that he worked his passage from Australia in a cook's galley. When he appeared in Auckland he posed £is a journalist, with visiting cards bearing the name of a well-known London newspaper. Here ho ran up some debts for clothing, a typewriter, golf equipment and other things, but was promptly induced to return the goods and leave the city to escape a harder fate. Upjohn, then aged 20, appeared in the Police Court in Wellington on December 23, 1925, on four charges of false pretences and attempted false pretences. It was stated that he had obtained goods to the value of £3B from a leading Wellington firm of drapers and clothiers, and had attempted to obtain suits valued at £47 from two tailoring establishments by representing that he was a member of the Governor-General's staff. Upjohn was also alleged to have obtained a typewriter valued at £lB 18s by a pretence that ho was Captain Upjohn, of the London Times.

Detective Walsh stated that when he was arrested Upjohn said he was Captain Upjohn, of the Welsh Guards, and had recently arrived in New Zealand. He also declared later that he had been employed by the Empire Press Union in Australia and came to New Zealand as a steward. He had since done work for New Zealand newspapers.

Upjohn since then has gained considerable publicity through seyeral exploits, the last being at Vancouver, when reporters interviewed him as the bogus Stephen McKenna. At one time he arrived back in Christchurch as "Mr. Somerset Maugham," who is a leading English playwright.