DEATH OF MRS G.A. SELWYN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13898, 9 May 1907, Page 2

DEATH OF MRS G.A. SELWYN.

(From Odr Own Coebespoxdext.) LONDON 1 , March 23. In tho ninety-eighth year of her aj;e Mm George Augustus Selwyn, widow of tlio first Bishop of New Zealand, has just passed away after a very brief illuces. He.- death took place in the Lichfield Cathedral Close, where she had lived since her famous husband's death in 1878.

Tho Times, in its obituary notice, says: " Jioth the bishop and his wife wero tho children of eminent lawyers. Mrs £clwyn's father was Sir John Richardson, who was born in 1771, so thai', the lives of father and daughter stretched over li 6 years. Sir John Richardson was made a puisne judge -of the Court of Common Pleas in November, 1818, and was knighted by the Prince Regent at Carlton lioi|33 in the following June. His only daughter was born in September, ISO 9, ami on Juno 25, 1839, she was married to George Augustas. Selwyn, then Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and curate to the Rev. Isaac Gbsgct, vicar of "Windsor. Two years later, in October, 3841, her husband, at tho suggestion of Bishop Blomficld, was consecrated first Bishop of New Zealand, and they sailed for tho colony in December of that year. Throughout the quarter of a century during which Schvyn pursued bis apostolic labours in the South Seas, his wife took her share in his struggle*! and hardships. In 1567, when they wero in England for the first Pan-Anglican Synod, camo Schvyn's appointment to the see of Lichfield, and after his death in 1878 Mrs Selwyn continued to reside in the cathedral city, entering into the work of various organisations for the good of women and girls. She retained her faculties in spite of her great age, and her illness was only of a few days' duration. Her only son, John Richardson Selwyn, succeeded Fattoson as Bishop of Melanesia, in 1877, the year boforo his father's death, and at tho timo of his premature decease, in 1693, was master of Selwyn College, which was founded in his father's memory." Another paper referring to Ihe decease of the venerable lady, says:—"Mrs Selwyn shared with her husband all tho dangers, hardships, and privations of tho Southern Seas, and proved herself ono of the most noblo and devoted women of her age. Her end was calm and serene, as became her saintly life. Nine was a fateful number in her life. She was born in IEO 9, she married in 1839, c-he was 39 years a wife, and 29 years a widow, and .she died at 9 o'clock on Palm Sunday."' Her funeral took place at Lichfield this afternoon.

A writor in tho Westminster Gazette says:—''Stirring times in New Zealand arc rccallotl by (ho death of Mrs Selwyn, widow of Dr G. A. Selwyn. Her husband and Sir George fircy are two of the greatest names in ilio history of that colony. Bishop Solwyn was very loth to leave Now* Zealand, regarding tho building up of the Clmreh in that colony and in the islands of tho Southern X'ociiic as his consecrated life- 'work. He, indeed, had given a public assurance that he would never leave New Zealand, and when tiie bishopric of Lichfield was offered he iiromptly declined it. Then Queen Victoria summoned him to Windsor, and he gave way. After their return to England, Bishop and Mrs Selwyn such is the foreo of long habitcontinued to converse ih Maori, tho language- of the New Zealand Natives, whose evangelisation was the object of the Bishop's most strenuous efforts. Once, on a railway journey, they slatted talking in Maori, and were going into soir.o strictly private matters when a yen tie man in the corner thought it his duty to inform them that he understood the language also. The Bishop laughed, and said: 'Well, that is curious. 1 snppcsß the chances aga,in-t three Maori-Speaking people meeting in an English railway carriage are about a million to one.' The last recognisable words uttered by Bishop Selwyn on his deathbed were tho Maori for 'It is light.'" In the leading columns of the same journal a writer says: "A remarkable link with tho past, and notobly with the Gladstonian past, has been severed by the death of the widow of (jeorge Augustus Selwyn. Born in the f:>me year as the future four-times Prime Minister of England, she became united, in the ssmo year as he wis ym\, to his closest friend at school and co-editor with him of the Eton Miscellany. 'What Solwyn did as bishop both at the Antipodes and at Home is part of the modern history of the Church of England: but for'the outer world his earliest, episcopal appointment is apt mainly to be associated with one of Sydney Smith's

latest ami best-rcmembercd mots, the witty canon of St. Pant's having observed to Samuel Wilberforeo, when lie heard the announcement, that, it would make quite a revolution in the dinners of New Zealand: 'Toio d'Kvec[ue wiil bo the most recherche dish, and your man will add, ".And there is cold clergyman on the sidetable." '"