Deaths of Fiji Pioneers

Mr. C. J. Bucknell

AFTER 73 years’ residence in the Colony of Fiji, Mr. Charles Julian Bucknell, of Korolevu, died in Suva, on October 2. He spent his entire life in the Rewa district, at first as a builder, but mostly in various planting and farm ing enterprises. He married Miss Bishop, of Rewa, in 1895, and they had a large family of six sons and seven daughters.

Two of his sons predeceased him, and he is survived by his widow, two sons (who are prisoners of war in Japan), two daughters, Ivy (Mrs. Loftus) and Eda, in New Zealand, Dorothy (Mrs. Vine) in New South Wales, Mesdames W. H. Cuth bert, McGeady and Bateson, in Suva and Lami, and his eldest living son, Raymond, at Korolevu.

Mr. T. H. T. Blakelock

AN old-timer who passed on recently was Mr. Thomas Henry Thursfield Blakelock, who was born in Kadavu, 70 years ago, his parents arriving there from England, via New Zealand, in 1&59.

All his active live, come calm, come storm, come hurricane, he followed the sea, and had had sufficient adventures to fill a good-sized book. For some time he was mate on the Government yacht “Clyde”; and, later, master of another Government yacht, “Lady Escott.” In between times, in the heyday of the Sigatoka banana trade, he owned five trading vessels.

He had four children: Peters, of Suva, another married daughter in Samoa, and two sons James, who was murdered some years ago in the Gilberts, when he was second engineer on the Government yacht “Moa-moa,” and Thomas, who was in London at the out break of war, and who survived the evacuations of Dunkirk and Greece, only to be reported missing in the battle of Crete.

Sister Madeleine, of the Community Sisters of the Cross, has been on fur lough in Australia from the Solomon Islands. She left recently for the New Hebrides, where she will wait until she can return to the BSI mission field.

Mrs. Winifred Jenner, who for nine years was a resident of Rabaul and Wau, New Guinea, was married in St. Mark’s Church, Sydney, on October 9, to Mr.

Robert Bertram, an English-born resi dent of Sydney, who served in the AIF in World W!ar I. An unexpected but very welcome arrival at the reception, after the wedding, was Major Ayris, of Wau, who was again enjoying short leave in Sydney after a further series of adventures in “the little ships.”

Mr. Edgar William Aidney, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Aidney, of Suva, Fiji, died in Auckland, NZ, on Septem ber 24. He was born in Suva 29 years ago and, in the last few years, was on the engineering staff of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. He leaves a wife (the former Miss Gwen Field, of Suva) and one daughter.