PASSING OF MR W. H. HARRIS

Otago Witness, Issue 3595, 6 February 1923, Page 23

PASSING OF MR W. H. HARRIS

Many generations of Otago University students will- learn with more than passing regret of the death of Mr W. H. Harris! who was for some 30 years and until quite recently janitor of the University. His romantic boyhood experiences and his strongly marked personality made him a figure of memorable interest. He had an extraordinarily tenacious memory, and especially of late years loved to live over again hri experiences when he was a boy with the China Squadron in the adventurous days of the early sixties. He was born on October 3, 1852, at Chatham. His father was in the Royal Marines, and as the boy lived in the barracks ho imbibed his love of the sea from infancy. After training at Greenwich he joined the navy at a very early age, and when he had scarcely reached his teens he had experienced something of the romance and the thrill of chasing slavers on the African coast or “blaekbirders” in the South Seas, and had played his minor part in the British plans for thrusting' European civilisation upon the calmly unappreciative East. Many of Mr Harris’s vivid reminiscences he recently contributed in a series of newspaper articles. Any public reference to naval history of half a century ago was almost sure to draw a pithy letter from Mr Harris recalling some pertinent fact or experience from his well-stored memory. About the University he was a friendly and familiar figure, who took a keen per sonal interest in everyone associated with the University. His memory for faces would have won fame for any aspiring nolitician. and in the days when the students numbered only 300 or 400 it would be scarcely incorrect to say that he knew every one of them. His experience 'n the navy brought him acquaintances in many strange parts, and it was largely with their assistance that he was able to build up what was probably the finest stamp collection in the dominion. His page of rare early Victorian-New Zealand stamps w.'i.s a sight to make a connoisseur’s eyes sparkle, and altogether he had some 20,000 varieties. _ He was always of a kindly and obliging disposition, and leaves behind him hosts of cheery and pleasant memories. He is survived by Mrs Harris and several of a family.