ABOUT PEOPLE

Southland Times, Issue 17232, 31 December 1912, Page 6

ABOUT PEOPLE

.Miss R. Main, of Invercargill, was a passenger by Hie .Manuka which left for the north from Bluff yesterday evening. A Loudon cable stales that .Miss Olive May. a Gaiety girl, has been married to Lord Victor Paget. Mr George Allinglon. of Rangiorn. died on Sunday, aged -Sit, He was associated with Joseph Arch In the movement for the improvement of the conditions of agricultural labourers in England. He came to New Zealand in 18".'). Air Sidney Edward Grenville Smith, a well-known journalist, died at Hamilton last Tuesday morning of heart disease, aged 57 years. At vat ious times he was connected with the North Otago Times, the Waikato Times, the .Marlborough Times, and the N.Z. Times, besides ft number of Australian journals. Of late years he held a controlling interest in t lie Te A roll a Mail, of which lie was editor at the time of his death. The Rev. Walter Dunkley, vicar of Glenmark, died suddenlv on Sunday morning, aged Hi’. He was for many years precentor in Christchurch Cathedral, and a prominent Mason. In his younger days .Mr Dunkley was engaged in the teaching profession, and was on the staff of the Middle (then Grumman School. Canon Dunkley had been a freemason for nearly fifty years. He had belonged to St. Augustine and St. Albans Lodges, and was at the time of his deatli Worshipful Master of the Amherley Lodge. for several years he had been District Grand Chaplain under the English Constitution. He was a Royal Arch .Mason of the Beckett Chapter. isth degree. Our Christchurch correspondent wires that the death is announced of Mr George Allington. of Hangiora. who died at the Christchurch Hospital at the advanced age of 85 years. Mr Allington was a Warwickshire man. and forty years ago gained celebrity as a colleague of Joseph Arch in advocating the cause of the agricultural labourers in their efforts to belter tlieir conditions in resiled to wages and hours of labour. Like bis leader. Joseph Arch, he was of humble parentage, but possessed of considerable mental power, and a spirit of independence. He objected to the social homage expected by those called his betters. Like his leader also lie was a Methodist local preacher, having the gift of fluent and forceful speech. This gift was turned to good account in spreading the propaganda upon which ttiey had entered with a zeal that made for success, and in 1872 they had the satisfaction of forming the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, of which Joseph Arch was elected president. The agitation resulted in agricultural labourers obtaining a rise In their wages, but this had the unforeseen effect of destroying the Union, the labourers deeming their object gained and ceasing to take interest in it. In 1875 Mr Allington, dissatisfied with the conditions prevailing in rural England, decided to take his family to Xew Zealand, and they were amongst a large company of passengers landed from the ship Crusader on December 16th of that year. Mr Allington had resided in Xortli Canterbury ever since.