OBITUARY

Southland Times, Issue 22187, 1 December 1933, Page 7

OBITUARY

GENERAL SIR ARTHUR CURIUE.

CANADIAN WAR LEADER.

(United Press Assn. —Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 11 p.m.) Montreal, November 30. General Sir Arthur Currie, Com-mander-in-Chief of the Canadian Corps in France and principal and vicechancellor of McGill University, died to-day at the age of 57. He was stricken with a blockage of a blood vessel in the brain on November 7 and pneumonia developed to bring death.

Arthur William Currie, the Canadian teacher who became a general, was born at Napperton, Ontario, in December, 1875. and educated at Strathroy Collegiate Institute. In 1891 he went to British Columbia, and spent some years as a teacher. In 1906 he took up insurance business and three years later added transactions in real estate. Meanwhile, he had joined the Canadian Garrison Artillery as a gunner and in 1900 he received a commission. By 1909. while continuing his real estate business, he was in command of the sth Regiment of Garrison Artillery. In 1913 he gave up the command, however, to assist in the formation of the 50th Gordon Highlanders of Canada. Next year, on the outbreak of the war, he volunteered for overseas service and was given command of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade. He took part in the first battle of Ypres in April, 1915, the first occasion on which the Germans used poison gas. In September of that year he succeeded General Alderson in the command of the Ist Canadian Division and he was in most of the chief engagements that followed. In January 1917 he was promoted to the leadership of the Canadian Corps and remained in that position till the end of the war. On his return to Canada he was made principal military adviser to the Government with the rank of general, but he resigned in 1920 to accept the principalship of McGill University, Montreal. He had been knighted (K.C.M.G.) in June, 1917. In August, 1927, a Canadian newspaper published an attack on Sir Arthur Currie, alleging that he caused needless loss of life near Mons by ordering an attack after he knew that the Armistice had been signed. The verdict cleared him of the charge absolutely and awarded him damages. Sir Arthur Currie was an Hon. LL.D, of Cambridge, McGill, Toronto, Pennsylvania, New York and Edinburgh, a director of the Bank of Montreal, and had French, Belgian and American war decorations.