COLONEL SLEEMAN

Southland Times, Issue 22783, 8 January 1936, Page 5

COLONEL SLEEMAN

VISIT TO SOUTHLAND. AMBULANCE BRIGADE COMMISSIONER. The Grand Priory in the British realm of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem sends a representative to visit its distant organizations every five years and to report to the Grand Prior, the Duke of Connaught. Colonel J. L. Sleeman, Chief Commissioner of the Brigade Oveiseas, is now engaged upon this work and arrived in Wellington by the Monowai yesterday. Last evening he boarded the steamer express vessel Wahine and to-day will proceed to Southland. Officially his New Zealand tour commences in Invercargill next Monday. At a meeting of the Brigade staff held last night it was decided to have a parade and inspection in the training yard at the rear of the Fire Station on Monday evening so that Colonel Sleeman may carry out his official inspection. After the inspection the parade will march to the ambulance headquarters where a demonstration of firstaid and home-nursing will be given. In the event of the weather being unfavourable the same programme will he held in the ambulance hall. Experience In Order. Colonel J. L. Sleeman, C.M.G., C.8.E., M.V.0., M.A., J.P. (Knight of Justice of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem), the Chief Commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade Overseas, is a regular officer of the Royal Sussex Regiment, who served in the South African War of 1900-02, including Lord Roberts’s advance on Pretoria. Later he was the officer selected to conduct the experiments in India which resulted in the introduction of the entrenching tool for the British Army, which was the means of saving countless thousands of lives during the Great War. In 1909, he was one of the six regular officers to form the first units of the Officers Training Corps, for which he was made an M.A. (Honoris Cause) of the Queen’s University of Belfast. Following service in the trenches in France and Flanders, he was selected during the Great War to fill the important and responsible appointment of Director of Military Training and Officer in Charge, Air Services to the New Zealand Forces, during which he had the unique distinction of serving with various squadrons of the Imperial Japanese Navy on war service as staff and liaison officer. For this he was mentioned in despatches on two occasions, and received the Order of the Sacred Treasure of Japan, and a Sword of Honour. Following the Great War, he was promoted to Chief of Staff to the New Zealand Forces (C. 5.0. First Grade), and in 1920, was selected to act as Dominion Staff Officer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales during the Royal tour of New Zealand, being awarded the M.V.O. for his services. Big Game Hunter. He retired from the command of the 160th (South Wales) Brigade on September 30, 1935, after completing his fortieth year of service. This brigade had the great honour of being selected to attend the army manoeuvres last year, the largest concentration of British troops held since the Great War, in which many interesting and new experiments were tried out, so that he arrives to make his tour fresh from this experience. He is an Indian big game hunter of repute and the grandson of the famous Major-General Sir William Sleeman, K.C.8., the suppressor of Thuggee—a horrible religion of murder—in India; his book “Thug, or a Million Murders,” having been published in 1934, was so successful that it has been translated into French.