ORDER OF ST. JOHN

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1932, Page 7

ORDER OF ST. JOHN

INSIGNIA CONFERRED. GOVERNMENT HOUSE CEREMONY. Insignia of the ranks of Serving Brother and Serving Sister respectively in the Venerable Order of the .Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem were presented to five prominent Auckland ambulance workers by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, on ■ Saturday at Government House. HiS Excellency performed the ceremony on behalf of His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, Grand Prior, and the Chapter-general of the Venerable Order, of which His Majesty the King is Sovereign Head and Patron in tho British Realm.

The recipients were: St. John Ambulance Association: Mr. S. E. Langstone, chief transport officer and manager. St. John Ambulance Brigade: Mr. A. W. Probert, district superintendent; Mr. F. E. Schofield, district officer; Mr. U. Hitchon, corps officer; Mrs. E. Camihell, lady divisional superintendent, National Reserve Nursing Division. Mrs. C. Bassett, lady divisional superintendent, Onehunga Nursing Division, who was unable to be present, will receive the insignia from His Excellency at Government House. '

The Order had its origin in Jerusalem as an international lay confraternity for the relief of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Later it assumed a military character and exercised sovereign powers in Rhodes and Malta, where its knights devoted themselves for centuries to resisting by force of arms the spread of Mohammedan power in the Mediterranean and the operations of Barbary corsairs until they were dispossessed yb tho French in 1798. The Order was resuscitated separately in Italy, Germany and England in the nineteenth century, and the English organisation was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1888. The charter was amended under King Edward VII. and was completely revised in 1926, when the Order was given tho appellation of “Venerable.” Among its many purposes are the maintenance of the St. John Ophthalmic Hospital at Jerusalem, t’he St. John Ambulance Association and Brigade in Britain and overseas, and the London Light and Electrical Clinic for poor people. Membership iu the Order is conferred for services in the cause of humanity. There are five classes: Bailiffs and. Dames Grand Cross, Knights and Dames of Justice and of Grace, Commanders of both sexes, Officers of both sexes, and Serving Brothers and Sisters. The headquarters is at St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, in the remaining buildings of the original English priory of the Order. Mr. C. J. Tuiiks, district commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade for the Auckland District, is a, Knight of Grace of the Venerable Order.