PERSONAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXX, Issue 3785, 6 July 1899, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Permission has been given by the Bishop of Wellington to the Rev F. H. Spencer to officiate in the diocese until the 31st August. Mr W. Callender, Manager of the Bank of New Zealand at Timaru, who has been appointed one of the district inspectors, is to have his headquarters at Auckland. Mr John McDonnell, Under-Secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department, Queensland, has been granted twelve months’ leave of absence prior to retiring on a pension. Major-General Sir Rolled Smith leaves Melbourne for London in October. His five years’ term of engagement with the Victorian Government as military commandant expires in November.

New Zealanders who remember the days of Bendigo will learn with regret of the death of Mr John Robertson, formerly of the celebrated coaching firm of Robertson and Wagner, once a household word in Australia. Mr Robertson’s death took place at his residence, “Halewood,” Toorak, Melbourne. He was sixty-five years of ago. On the latest monthly payday for the Hauraki group of mines, a pleasing ceremony was performed by Captain Hodge, on behalf of the London directors of the Royal Oak mine, in the presentation of a gold watch and chain to Mr Janies Bower, who was the mechanical engineer in connection with the erection of the Ranfurly waterpower plant. Admiral Sir Henry Fairfax was in May selected to succeed Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle as Cnmmander-in-Cliief at Devon port. Sir Henry has been in the Navy since 1850, and, besides filling other important offices, was for a term Com-mander-in-Chief of the Australian squadron. Fie had command or the Britannia training ship at Dartmouth during the time that Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales were undergoing their course of study. Mr Justice Williams, of Victoria, who. about two years ago, had the misfortune to break one of his legs by a fall on the Buffalo Mountains, and who had to be carried a very long and difficult journey on the shoulders of litter bearers before medical asistance could be obtained, has not completely recovered from the effects of the accident. His Honor has been suffering from fibrous degeneration of muscle in the injured limb, and recently he placed himself in the hands of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald for the electrosurgical operation known as electrolysis. The Tasmanian Government Geologist, Mr Harcourt Smith, who left over a month ago to inspect the mineral deposits at Furncaux Islands, died at Clark Island as already cabled. The cause of death was pleurisy. The deceased was educated at the Launceston Grammar School, and in 1884 took a Tasmanian scholarship and graduated as B.A. at Cambridge. He studiecj mineralogy in Germany, and on his return to the colonies was appointed assayor to the Central Broken Hill mine, and subsequently of the Western mine at Zeehan. Ho was appointed Tasmanian geologist about three years ago, in succession to Mr Montgomery. The deceased was a son of Mr Charles H. Smith, of the firm of Messrs Clias. H. Smith and Co., and was thirty-four years of age. He leaves a widow and .two children.

The late Very Rev Doan Selwyn, of Newcastle, New South Wales, was the fourth son of the Rev Townshond Selwyn, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and Charlotte Sophia, his wife (daughter of Lord George Murray, Bishop of St. David’s), and was born at Kilmington Rectory, Somersetshire, England, March 7th, 1823. After being educated at Winchester, he came to Australia in 1841, and followed squatting pursuits until 1850, when, at the request of Bishop Tyrrell, of Maitland, he began to prepare himself for holy orders. On the 30th June, 1852, the young clergyman was married at East Maitland to Rose Elizabeth, sixth daughter of the Rev George Keyloch Rusden, M.A., of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge (the first clergyman at East Maitland), lurs Selwyn survives her husband. In February, 1853, Mr Selwyn was sent to Grafton to take charge of a parish which then included both the Clarence and Richmond river districts. In July, 1867, he became the incumbent of the Cathedral parish of Newcastle, and till the hour of hi* death retained that charge. Dean Selwyn was a cousin of the "first Bishop of New Zealand, and also of the latter’s son, Bishop John Selwyn, of Melanesia.. He had no family, but two of his brothers are still alive, one being a retired admiral of the English navy, and the other a university professor in Canada.