HOOLEY’S GOLD PLATE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 180, 2 August 1932, Page 5

HOOLEY’S GOLD PLATE

FATE OF £lO,OOO GIFT MELTED DOWN BY ST. PAUL’S It was stated that the gold Communion plate, valued at £lO,OOO, which was presented to St. Paul's Cathedral by Mr. Ernest Terah Hooley 35 years ago, had been melted down by order of the IDean and Chapter, and is to be replaced by another set of vessels, because according to Canon S. A. Alexander, the plate “was not big enough and was the wrong shape.” Mr. Hooley, now living in retirement on the Midlands, comments on the action of the cathedral authorities in a letter publisher in the Daily Express. He writes:—

“Some years ago I was a rich man and believed in letting others participate in my wealth. At the request of the then Dean of St. Paul’s and his canons and archdeacons, I promised a service of gold for their use, and left it to them to choose the style and pattern and size and the maker. All I had to do was to pay for it. This was completed and paid for when I was a wealthy man. “Evil times came, and, instead of forging and blowing out my brains, I went to the Court and handed over all my possessions for the benefit of my creditors. The greatest crime I ever committed was losing my money. Then all my influential friends vanished with the going down of the sun. Injustice was heaped upon me, and finally I overcame the lot.

“My present to St. Paul’s was kept in a dark hole, not because it was too small, but because the donor had fallen from grace. Now I ask if it would not be fair to return the gold now melted down than use the same for some other purpose for which I have not been consulted!

“The church is supposed to bo for the conversion of sinners like mo. But another church, which cost mo £9.500, and I reseated and put a now organ in, sent a deputation to me after my trouble, saying I should not bo persona grata to the authorities, and they preferred my room to mv company.

“But, thank God. I have found the church at last where sinners and the poor are as welcome as the widow and her mite,”