LEGISLATOR PASSES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 97, 27 April 1939, Page 9

LEGISLATOR PASSES

MR. E. J. HOWARD’S DEATH CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE’S OF HOUSE (Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, April 26. The death has'occurred of Mr. Edwin John Howard, Chairman o£ Committees of the House of Representatives, aged 71 years. Mr. Howard had been Member for Christchurch South since 1919. His death removes a pioneer and widelyesteemed figure from the Labour movement. In January, he became ill but recovered steadily. On Monday he was operated on tor another complaint at the Little Company of Mary Hospital. His death occurred early this afternoon rather unexpectedly. A civic funeral will be accorded Mr. Howard by the City Council. The body will be taken to the municipal oilices early on Saturday morning and will lie in the horseshoe of the central office until 11 a.m., when the funeral will take place. The Mayor (Mr. R. M. MacFarlane) is supervising the funeral arrangements. Mr. Howard was born in Bristol in 1868 and was educated at St. James the Less, Plymouth, and became apprenticed to an accountant at Devonport. However, he went to sea, spending his early years as a seaman in the Royal Navy. He first came to Christchurch in 1887 and the following year he married in this city Miss Harriett Goring, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Amos G. Goring, who died 29 years ago. He then became a copper, lead and zinc smelter, and in 1888 lie went to Australia, where he worked as smelting foreman for an Australian smelting company and later for the South Australian and Western Australian Government. While in South Australia he studied chemistry at the Adelaide School of Mines and he joined a syndicate to prospect for gold in the MacDonald Ranges in Central Australia. After Mrs. Howard's death in Australia, Mr. Howard returned to Christchurch in 1902 with his three young daughters. One died later and he brought up two remaining girls, Miss Mabel Howard, now secretary of the Canterbury General Labourers' Union and chairman of the reserves committee of the Christchurch City Council, and Mrs. T. Lamont, who also resides in Christchurch. Joining the Labour movement, Mr. Howard soon became prominent. For many years he spoke, to use his own term from the “soap box” in Cathedral Square. From those battling days oi the pioneers of Labour he graduated through every office in the movement until, at his death, he saw his party elected as the Government for the second time and himself in the honoured position of Chairman of Committees and Deputy-Speaker of the House of Representatives. Another honour, that of Administrator of Samoa, was offered Mr. Howard in ’ 1936 by the Labour Government. “This was a very attractive offer to follow in the footsteps of generals and other gallant officers,” he told the electors of Christchurch South last year, “and I feel that if I accepted I would have let you down.”