Late R. W. Gasset

An Authority on Rarotonga

TIE death took place in Sydney, on June 11, very suddenly, of Mr. R.

W. Gosset, president of the Geo graphical Society of New South Wales, and a well-known authority on Islands history. As a young man, Mr.

Mr, Gosset, who was also a member of the council of the Pacific Islands Society, had made a particular study of Rarotonga, and over the years had accumulated a vast store of unpublished material. Curiously enough, he was working on it only a few days before his death. One of the problems that had interested him was that of the island’s discovery, and as he always awarded that honour to the “Seringapa tam”, the article which he was writing for his Society’s journal will be awaited with interest.

Mr. Gosset, an engineer by profession, had always been interested in the engineering exploits of the Polynesians, and had devoted much attention, in that connection, to Easter Island. He was a popular speaker, and much in demand in Sydney to talk on Pacific matters.

A member of an old Huguenot family, he was born in Auckland nearly 60 years ago, and, on both sides of his fam ily, came of military stock. He served during the last war, enlisting as a pri vate, and his only son, Mr. Wayth Gos set, is now in camp at Ingleburn, N.S.W.

In addition, he is survived by his widow and a daughter. The latter is on the secretarial staff at the University of Sydney.

A quiet and unassuming man, Mr. Gos set had the mind of a student, and few men had a wider knowledge of early shipping activity in the Pacific. Raro tonga, however, always remained his principal interest, and it was his ambi tion, later in life, to prepare the result

of his researches for publication.-

E.R.

Cosset lived in Rarotonga, where his uncle, the late Colonel Gudgeon, was Commissioner.