Melanesian Missionary Lost
p. 24 · Read in the full issue
At Sea
VI/'HILE travelling between the Reef ** Islands and Utupua, Santa Cruz Group, Eastern Solomons, in a whale boat, fitted with a small engine and sail, Rev. George West, of the Melanesian Mis sion, was lost at sea on January 19.
Joining the Mission from his home town, Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1913, Mr. West was sent to the Solomon Islands as a carpenter. After 12 years of ser vice he entered St. John’s College, Auck land, to train for the priesthood. In 1925, he was ordained a deacon and became a
priest the following year. Taking as his station the Reef Group, he went to the Mission’s loneliest outpost, and served there continuously until the time of his death.
The Sydney secretary of the Melane sian Mission (Major H. S. Robinson) stated that Mr. West had done exceed ingly valuable work in the Solomon Is lands, both in his capacity as a carpenter in the early days of his association with the Mission and as a devoted missionary among the people of the isolated Reef Islands, “He was a particularly modest and un assuming type of man,” said Mr. Robin son, “and few knew the real extent and worth of his labours in the Group.”