OBITUARY

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 32

OBITUARY

MR WILLIAM O’BRIEN. LONDON, February 26. Tbe death is announced of Mr William O’Brien, Irish Nationalist. Born in 1852, Mr William O’Brien was a reporter on the Cork Daily Herald from 1875 to 1880. He founded United Ire land in 1830, and was prosecuted nine times for political offences, spending more than two years in prison. He was elected to Parliament for his native town as a Nationalist in 1833. He was a member of the Land Conference of 1903. and ever since had been an advocate of the policy of conciliation for the union of all classes and creeds in Ireland, with a view to home rule by consent. He withdrew from Parliament with Mr Healy and the rest of his all-for-Ireland colleagues at the general election in 1918. He was the author of several books on Ireland. PRINCE LICHNOWSKY. BERLIN, February 27. The death is announced of Prince Lichnowsky, German Ambassador to Britain in 1914. Prince Lichnowsky was born In 1860. He was a member of an old and illustrious Polish family, with estates in Austrian and Prussian Silesia, he was born at Kreukenort. the son of Charles, Prince Lichnowsky, a Prussian cavalry general, and Princess Marie de Croy-Dulmen. He was for a time an officer in the Life Guard Hussars, and in 1904 married Countess Mechtilde Acro-Zinneberg. An attache of the German Embassy in London (1885), he was stationed later at Stockholm, Constantinople, Dresden, Bucharest, and Vienna, and Ambassador in London, and held that post until tbe outbreak of the Great War in August, 1914. Credited from the outset with a desire to improve Anglo-German relations, the prince was generally regarded as having been an unconscious tool of a cynical diplomacy, of which the chief agent nt the German Embassy in London was Baron von Kuhlmann. In Germany he was accused of misleading his own country in regard to the position in Ireland just before the outbreak of the Great War. In a memorandum, “ My Mission to Ixindon.” written in 1916. for private circulation, but made public in 1918, and published in April, 1918, the prince definitely charged Germany with having deliberately destroyed the chance of peace, and naid a tribute to Sir Edward Grey’s pacific policy. As a result of . this publication, the prince resigned, his ambassadorial rank, and was prohibited from writing- articles for the press. Hi« wife wrote a travel book on E<rvnt, “ The Land of the Pharaohs,” 1912. '

GENERAL DIAZ. '■ROME, February 29. The death is announced of General Diaz, the connnander-in-chief during tbe war.

THE DEAN OF ROCHESTER. RUGBY’’. March 1. Tile death has occurred of Dr Storrs, Dean of Rochester; aged 82. His eldest son, Sir Ronald Storrs, was formerly military and later eivil Governor of Jerusalem, and is now Governor of Cyprus.

ADMIRAL SIR CECIL LAMBERT. . , . , . RUGBY, March 1. Admiral Sir Cecil Lambert, who served both as a member of the Admiralty Board and in flag commands at- sea during the war, and was afterwards Director of Personnel at the Air Ministry, died yesterday; aged 63. SIR HERBERT BREWER. LONDON, March 1. The death is announced of Sir Herbert Brewer. Sir Herbert Brewer, who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral, was 62 years of age. He was the composer of several delightful vocal and instrumental works, and held the post of organist in Oxford, Bristol Cathedral, St. Michael’s, Coventry, and Tonbridge School. He was knighted on January 1, 1926. SIR HENRY WHITEHEAD. LONDON, March 1. The death is announced of Sir HenryWhitehead. aged sixty-nine, worsted spinner and manufacturer. CAI*TATN GEORGE GORDON SMITH. WELLINGTON, March 2. The death occurred to-day at Eastbourne of Captain Geoige Gordon Smith, late Government Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine in Wellington. He was bom at Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1854, and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. He served his apprenticeship in the vessels of the Aberdeen Clipper Line (White Star) trading between London, Sydney, and Melbourne from 1868 to 1873. He served as second mate, chief officer, and master respectively in the Aberdeen line of packets trading between London. Natal, ami Mauritius from 1877 till ISB3. He joined the State Steamship Company of Glasgow, and served as third, second, and chief officer and master from 1884 till 1891. He was second officer on the armed cruiser State f Nebraska, stationed on the West Coast of South America during the Russian scare of 1885. Captain Smith joined tbe Union Steam Ship Company's steamer Ovalau at Dunbarton as master in 1891, and then served as chief officer and master in several of the company’s vessels until he resigned in 1899 to take up his appointment as Government Superintendent of Mercantile Marine and Examiner of Masters and Mates at the Port of Wellington. He retired on superannuation in December, 1919. He leaves a widow, two sons, and two daughters.