Untimely Death
p. 91 · Read in the full issue
OF
Mrs. Neville Snell
THE Fiji community learned with deep regret on July 24 that the death had occurred, at the early age of 43, of Mrs. Neville Snell, wife of the well known managing director of Morris Hed strom, Mr. H. E. Snell, and herself one of Fiji’s best-known women. She had been a sufferer from asthma since her experiences in England in 1940, and her health was not good after the birth of her baby in April last; but her death was not expected.
The daughter of Sir Henry and Lady Milne Scott, Neville spent most of her youth and young womanhood in Suva, where her good looks, cleverness and high spirits made her a conspicuous as well as a very popular figure. She married Mr.
J. E. Windrum, of the British Colonial Service; but the marriage was dissolved, and, when the war came to Europe in 1939, she enlisted in the Women’s Trans
port Service. She gained a high place in that famous Corps, by examination and good service, and her record in the Battle of Britain was outstanding. She suffered some harsh experiences during the successive blitzes, and it was then she contracted the asthma which finally caused her death.
She was married only last year to Mr.
Snell and a wide circle of friends will sympathise with him in this very un timely death. Sir Henry Milne Scott left Fiji by air for Australia on Sunday, July 23, only to be met, on his arrival in Sydney, by the shocking news that his daughter had died a few hours after he departed. He returned to Suva, to be with Lady Milne Scott in this time of tragedy.