WOMAN’S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1923, Page 10

WOMAN’S WORLD

PERSONAL ITEMS.

Miss McKellar returns from Khandallah to-night. Mrs. Cecil Cooper, of Owhanga (Main trunk line), is the guest of her mother, Mrs. Crawford. ***** Mias Craven, of London, who is visiting New Zealand with her father, Captain Craven, of the Port Kembla, spent a few days in itaw Plymouth this week. * * * * * Mrs. Lethbridge has returned to Wanganui. Miss Agnes Wilson returns from Makuri to-night. Mrs. Greig and Miss Phyllis Greig left by the Marama this week on a trip to Australia. Mrs. C. T. Mills left on Wednesday for Ashburton. Mrs. Howarth and Miss Gower have returned to Wanganui. Mrs. Avery and Mrs. ’S. Cottier have returned from Stratford. Miss K. Hynes is the guest of Mrs. Charters, Whangarei. Miss Percy Smith has returned from Auckland. • • • • Miss Marjory Wilson is the guest of Mrs. Atkinson, Lepperton. Miss I. Watson is visiting Palmerston North. Miss Hilda Hynes left this week for Sydney. Miss Grace Coxhead, of “Sunnybrae,” Miranda, Auckland district, who has been on a visit to Taranaki, returned home during the week. She was the guest of her aunt, Mrs. C. M. Hill, during her stay in New Plymouth. ***** Visitors at the White Hart this week were:Mrs. Lavin and child (Wanganui), Mrs. A. H. Russell (Mokau), Mrs. Gibson (Palmerston North), Mrs. Carmine, Mrs. Kerby (Wellington), Mrs. Bartley (Auckland), Mrs. Johnston (Wanganui), Mrs. Richmond (Tariki), Mrs. Folger (Wellington). Mrs. J. R. Cruickshank and Misses Whitton (2), Miss (Eileen Whitcombs, Miss Johnson (Auckland) and Miss F. Winfield are spending the week-end at the mountain. ***** Visitors at the Criterion during the week were: Mrs. R. J. Lloyd, Mrs. AV. Geddis (Wellington), Miss White and Miss Newton (Wanganui), Mrs. M. R. Morrison (Te Kuiti), Mrs. Jackson (Wanganui), Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. and Miss Dean (Christchurch), Mrs. and Miss Thompson (Blenheim), Miss Galloway (Picton). # » Mrs. D’arcy Robertson leaves for Palmerston North on Monday. A message from Wellington states that Lady Jellicoe has undergone a slight operation and has been compelled to cancel all engagements for the next three weeks at least.

VICTORIA LEAGUE. Jn the Victoria League Rooms next Monday evening, Mr. McClune, of Moturoa school, will deliver a lecture entitled “Modern Education,” a subject interesting not only to parents and teachers, but to all citizens. On Friday afternoon a very successful, “floral tea” was held in the League rooms, the hostesses being Mrs. Adam and Mrs. G. H. Thomson. A delightful musical programme was contributed by Mesdames Brodie, Mowlem and McAlley. ENGAGEMENTS. r The engagement :?• announced of Miss Annie Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Glentworth, of Bell Block, to Ormonde Seaton, eldest son of Mr.' and Mrs. A. ’S. Dunford, of Greymouth. The engagement is announced of Miss L’Estrange Nolan, youngest daughter of Sir Robert and Lady Nolan, Manono, St. George’s Pay Road, Parnell, and Lieu tenant N. S'. Barker, R.N., of the Ji.M S. Philomel, son of Mr. and Mrs? J., M. Barker, South Canterbury. An engagement of special, interest to N.ew Zealanders, is that announced between Mr. Cecil Marmaduke Pickthall, son of the late Mr. W. M. Pickthall and Mrs. Pickthall, formerly of. Dartmouth and Ceylon, and Charlotte Mary, widow of Lieut.-Col. J. C. C. Perkins, D. 5.0., Indian Army, daughter of Sir Harold Beauchamp, of Wellington Princess Maud, whose engagement to Lord Carnegie was announced this week, was born in 1893, and is a niece of the King and Queen and sister of Princess Arthur of Connaught Lord Carnegie, the eldest son of the 10th Earl of Southesk, is six months younger than Princess Maud.* He is a captain in the Scots Guards and was A.D.C. to the Viceroy of India from 1917 to 1919. The lineage of the Carnegies of Forfarshire is traced back to John de Balinhard, who was granted the lands and barony of Carnegie in 1358. The Forfarshire seat of the Earl of Southesk, Kinnaird Castle, was practically destroyed by fire in November. 1921, and priceless family treasures, including oil paintings, furniture and books, perished in the flames.

A COURAGEOUS OLD LADY. LIFE IN THE EARLY DAYS. There passed away in Wellington last ) oek a one-time resident of Taranaki, (lie late Mrs. G. London. Born over SO vears ago in Wellington, her life, in its‘first half . century at least, was packed full of incident and effort requiring no small amount of courage, with a faculty for hard work. Playing amongst the flax in what is now ‘Courtenay ' Place, looking at the first formed streets in Wellington, cracked and torn by the big earthouake which raised that same Court-

enay Piaes from a swamp; watching His Majesty’s ships of war coming, and going in and out of Porirua Harbor, and the erection of an armed camp on the Paremata Flats; accompanying friendly Maoris (with a child’s curiosity overcoming fear) for a sight of the redoubtable Te Rauparaha himself, before his mana was broken by Sir George Grey, were a few of the deceased lady’s reminiscences of her girlhood. She was left an orphan when only a few years old, and was obliged to work hard to help her foster-parents to carve out their home in the (then) dense forest surrounding Porirua Harbor. She married at 16, and was a widow with four children to care for at. 22. She therefore gained her experience in a hard school indeed. But she won through. .When her husband died, practically her only asset was a quarter-acre block in central Cuba Street, worth in its entirety then probably less than a foot of it to-day. Even this was nearly absorbed by a mortgagor. To hear the old lady tell of her struggles with poverty, with sickness and the loss of two of her boys, with the exasperation of well meaning friends whose advise was usually unsound, and to hear, too, that she succeeded and that the Cuba Street land would be her legacy to her sons was to listen to an epic, Her city property being secured, she moved to the (Sanson district, where, with her brother she engaged in more pioneering work. Then her boys began to help, and life was less strenuous, and to the end of her days she was enabled to enjoy the fruits of her hard work and unbounded pluck. In the late ’nineties she resided in Eltham and subsequently, after a brief ■ sojourn in Putaruru, removed to Wellington, living for some years in Lower Hutt. Except for a trip to England about fifteen years ago, she continued to reside in the Wellington district. She leaves two sons—Mr. G. T. London, ex-Mayor of Petone and for many years prominently associated with the ■Wellington Hospital Board and Wellington Education Board, and Mr. F. T. London, of Wellington.

PRINCESS CHRISTIAN.

DAUGHTER OF QUEEN VICTORIA. HARD-WORKING PHILANTHROPIST. Helena Augusta Victoria, Prince »s of Great Britain and Ireland, was the third daughter and fifth child of Queen Victoria and of Prince Albert of -Saxe Coburg and Gotha. She was born at Buckingham Palace on May 25, 1846. The premature and tragically sudden death of her beloved father when the Princess wae only 15 deeply shadowed her girlhood and gave a serious cast to her mind and character. After the marriage of Princess Alice she became her mother’s chief companion, and some surprise was felt when the announcement of her engagement to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holsteih was made in the winter of 1866. It. had, however, been stipulated by the Queen that the bridegroom should consent to make his home in England. The marriage took place in the private chapel of Windsor Castle on July 5, 1860, and at once Prince and Princess Christian took up their lesidence at Frogmore House, so long the home of the Duchess of Kent. There her Royal Highness- elder children .were born, and in 187'2 Queen Victoria gave her a roomier mansion in Cumberland Lodge, where she and Prince Christian spent most of their later life. Tn spite of the fact that the late Princess’ means were comparatively restricted, and that not till after Queen Victoria’s death did she become possessed of- the convenience of a London house, Princess Christian soon began to play a great role in philanthropic circles, most of her energies being concentrated on the nursing problem. It is an open secret that at one time, when she was about 18, the Princess had been intensely desirous of taking up nursing as a profession, and throughout the whole of her life nurses and. their training remained very near to her heart, and she labored incessantly to increase nil that might make the nursing profession respected and regarded as one of the noblest open to British womanhood. From the first she took an enthusiastic interest in the proposal for providing regularly trained nurses for the sick poor, and she herselt started a branch of this most important social work in the Royal Borough.

Princess Christian had inherited her father’s very considerable administrative ability, and as soon as it became realised tliat she. was willing to take a real and not merely an ornamental part in charitable schemes many calls were made upon her time. She became p, hard-working member of innumerable committees, often spending long and tiring days in London in order to attend meetings and to preside at committees, where her clear, incisive mind and quick mastery of detail were found invaluable by her co-workers. Together with several friends of her own, the Princess founded in 1872 the Royal School of Art Needlework, which had for its object that of enabling educated women who had fallen on evil times to earn a small but steady livelihood. But it would be invidious to try and give anything like a list of the Princess’ philanthropic foundations and works. During the latter portion of her life she took a pathetic interest in all that concerned the Army. During the South African War. which led to the death of the best loved of her children, her eldest son, she gave up much thought and. time to the well-named “Princess Christian Hospital Train.” devoting to that purpose the balance of a Red Cross fund raised by her during the Sudan campaign. With the exception of a voyage taken to South Africa in order to visit her son’s grave, Princess Christian never took anvthing in the nature of a complete holiday, and seldom left the shores of her native country. She was far too busy a woman to take much part in social life, but she more than once held a drawing-room reception for Queen Victoria, and she was fond of entertaining her intimate friends and coworkers both at Cumberland Lodge and later at Schomber House. She was left a widow in October. 1917.