Canon Benson

THE Reverend James Benson (who Is now Canon Benson) of the Church of England Mission in North- Eastern Papua, has gone to England, where he will attend the Bishop of New Guinea (the Right Reverend P. N. W.

Strong) as chaplain at the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. He passed through Auckland on January 10.

Canon Benson was captured by the Japs when they invaded Gona district in 1942, and was for long regarded as dead. However, it was later discovered that he had been taken by the Japs to Rabaul. and handed over to the care of the Roman Catholic missionaries im prisoned there, who nursed him care fully and restored him to health.

Canon Benson’s life has been filled with tragedy—when he was rector of a NSW South-Coast church, his car over ran a vehicular punt one night and his wife and children were drowned. He then spent some years in a Goulburn monastery, and later became a mission ary in Papua.