OBITUARY

Southland Times, Issue 24440, 21 May 1941, Page 9

OBITUARY

MR B. E. MURPHY

The death occurred in London suddenly on March 30 of Mr Bernard Egan Murphy, a member of the New Zealand High Commissioner’s staff and formerly of Naseby, Otago. Mr Murphy was born at Naseby about 53 years ago and was a son of the late Mr George Murphy, an Otago pioneer. He joined the Pensions Department in Dunedin and later went to Invercargill as Registrar of Pensions. During the Great. War Mr Murphy I served both in Samoa and France and 1 after the conclusion of hostilities returned to New Zealand for a short period. On his return to England Mr Murphy joined the High Commissioner’s staff, where he served under four commissioners. Mr Murphy is survived by his wife, one daughter and three sons. MR R. M. LAING The death has occurred in his seventy-sixth year, of Mr Robert Malcolm Laing, M.A., B.Sc., who, from 1886 till the date of his retirement in 11926, was a master at the Christchurch i Boys’ High School. A native of Dunedin, Mr Laing was educated at the Caversham primary school, the Otago Boys’ High School, and Canterbury University College. After graduating Master of Arts (he took the B.Sc. degree four years later) he accepted an appointment at the Timaru High School. He left there and joined the staff of the Christchurch Boys’ High School in 1886. His original scientific work was recognized by his election as a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society of New Zealand) in 1922. He was president of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury from 1894 to 1910, and again in 1927. His chariness of reaching conclusions and his modesty about the value of his own work stood in the way of his becoming a spectacular figure, but they endeared him to his friends, as did his very Scots, very pawky, and very delightful sense of humour. !

Botany was the field in which he gained most fame, especially the botany

of marine algae, more commonly known as seaweed. Field work in the native bush of plain and mountain occupied his attention for many years, and his work in New Zealand ranged from Norfolk Island in the north to the Campbell Islands in the south. The standard work on the plants of New Zealand, which he prepared in collaboration with Miss E. W. Blackwell, ran through many editions. Many papers on the botany of flowering plants and on algology were contributed by him to the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute.