TWO NEW NATIVE COURT JUDGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 111, 14 May 1941, Page 6

TWO NEW NATIVE COURT JUDGES

APPOINTMENTS MADE MR. R. I’. DYKES AND MR. E. M. BEECHEY (Press Assn.) Wellington, May 13. The appointment of Mr. R. P. Dykes, Wellington, and Mr. E. M. Beechey, Hamilton, to the bench of the Native Land Court was announced to-day. Mr. Dykes was born in Reefton and educated at the Reefton Primary School Nelson College (being a tinline scholar). Auckland and Victoria University Colleges. He has had a long period of departmental service, and his first, appointment was to the Lands and Survey Department. In September, 1919. he was appointed controller of Native Division of the Public Trust Office, a position he held until the newly-created Native Trust Office took over the native branch, of the Public Trust Office in 1921. Mr. Dykes was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court in 1923. On the amalgamation of the Native Trust Office and the Native Department in 1933, he became solicitor of the combined department. For the last two general elections he has acted as returning officer for the Western Maori electorate.

Mr. Beechey was born in 1886 and educated at the Wellington College. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1910 in Wellington. In 1920 he entered a legal partnership in Hawera and practised there until 1932. From then until 1939 he was engaged actively in dairy farming in the Bay of Plenty district. For the past five years he has been director of the Bay of Plenty Dairy Company.

He resumed practice in law in Hamilton in 1939. During his period of practice in Taranaki Mr. Beechey was in charge of the extensive native and Native Land Court work of his firm, which necessitated his appearance before the Native Land Court and the Native Appellate Court throughout the Taranaki and Wanganui districts.