OBITUARY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24685, 14 August 1941, Page 8

OBITUARY

LORD WILLINGDON . LONDON, Aug. 12. The death is announced of Lord Willingddn. 'V 1 ' Lord Willingdon, who was born in 1866 and raided to the naerage in 1910, served as tb his father-in-law. the first Earlofpras&ey, when the latter was of victoria, from 1897 until 1900. In that year he secured election to Parliament as Liberal member for Hastings, and six years later he was returned for Bodmin, which he represented until 1910. He was a Junior Lord of the Treasury and Government Whip in 1905 and 1906, and was Lord in Waiting to the King from 1911 to 1913." r During his membership of the House of Commons he was associated with the Imperialist wing of the Liberal Party, and spoke chiefly

on Admiralty reform and national defence. In 1913 he was appointed Governor of Bombay, and in 1918 he became Governor of Madras, a position he continued to fill until 1934. The period spent by him inTndia as Governor has been described as “11 years of perhaps the most difficult and critical time in the country’s history.” Lord Willirtgdoh was delegate for India at the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1924, dhd he presided over the delegation from the Boxer Indemnity Committee which visited China two years later. He became Governor-General of Canada in 1926 in succession to Lord Byng, and both he and Lady Willingdon soon made themselves exceedingly popular in the Dominion. In 1931 he was appointed Viceroy of India, which important post he held till 1936. Lady Willingdon, who is a daughter o; the' first Earl of Brassey, holds the decoration of the Imperial Order of ihe Crown of India, and was created G.B.E. in 1924.

Lord Willingdon’s eldest son, Gerard Frederick Freeman-Thomas, lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, was killed in the last war. His heir now is his second and only surviving son, the Hon. Inigo Brassey Freeman-Thomas, captain, R.A., late Indian Army, who was born in 1899, and married in'l92l ! the eldest daughter of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson. the actor. Lord Willingdon visited New Zealand early in 1940. He was in Dunedin in January of that year. MR H. W. KELLY (P.A.) NELSON, Aug. 13. The death has occurred of Mr Henry Warren Kelly, a former Mayor of Richmond borough for nine years, and a member of the Nelson Harbour Board for 17 years.' After transferring from Wellington to the Nelson district 20 years ago. be took a prominent part in all public affairs.