Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Friday 30 July 1926, page 6


PERSONAL

A wide circle of friends will regret to learn of the death at Wellington, New Zealand, of Mr. Malcolm Laughton. Mr. Laughton will be remembered as a popu-lar member of the theatrical profession which in the early days of the war pro-duced "The Country Girl," "Dairy Maids," and other plays to raise funds for war purposes. He afterwards saw service at the front, and returned with his health badly affected. Mr. Laughton was advance representative of the Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Co. on its first visit to Hobart. He was a son of the late Mr. James Laughton, solicitor of Hobart. Mr. Alex. Gurney, the Tasmanian black and white artist, and author of "Tasma-nians To-day," is severing his connec-tion with the Hydro-Electric Department, where he has been employed for about nine years. Mr. Gurney has received an appointment as assistant cartoonist on a Melbourne newspaper, and leaves Tasma-nia on August 5.

Mr. J. H. Rushforth, who for a number of years has been accountant to the firm of Messrs. W. Coogan and Co. at Laun-ceston, died at his residence, Bryan-street, Invermay, yesterday morning after a long illness. Deceased, who came to Tasma-nia with his parents when a boy, was closely identified with Anglican Church work in. the city, first with St. John's, and for several years later at St. George's. Invermay. He was a prominent member of the Invermay Bowling Club, and was associated with several other local insti-tutions, at one time holding tho position of treasurer to .the Society for the Preven-tion of Cruelty to Animals. He was also interested in orcharding, and owned a pro-perty a't Wesj; Arm. West Tamar. De-ceased leaves a widow and family of three, one son, Mr. Claude Rushiorth, and two daughters, Misses Edna and Lois. Mr. C. Rushforth is in the Education Denartmont, and was lately appointed to the charge of thc Bridgenorth school.

Three mjijnths' leave of absence, aa from August 1, has been granted to Mr. Justice Powers by notification published in thc Commonwealth "Gazette" of yes-

terday.

PREMIER'S ACCIDENT.

SYMPATHY OF SPORTSMEN.

At thc annual meeting of members of tile Northall-'park Trotting Club last even-ing, Mr. W. Hammond said that as a sporting body they sympathised with thc Premier (Hon. J. A. Lyon») and Ins col-leagues in their recent accident. H«

moved :

That this body of fnortsmen expresses its sympathy with the Premier in his recent accident, and tho hope that he will have a speedy recover}-.

Mr. T. Abel seconded, and said that al-though they might not acree wHh all the Government had inflicted on thc sporting comanunity, they knew the State had beeu passing through troublous times, and that when thc opportunity arrived relief would be afforded the racing and trotting club»:

She motion was carried.

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER.

COLLEAGUES CONCERNED ABOUT

HIS HEALTH.

(Australian Press Association.)

LONDON, July 28.

Some of the colleagues of Mr. Baldwin, tho Primo Minister, arc concerned about tho state of his health. Ho is undoubt-edly feeling the strain of recent anxious months, and proposes, after a short visit to his conflbitucjicy when tho House of Commons rises, to take a complete rest at Aix-les-Bains, in the French Depart-ment of Savoy.

DEATH OF CAPTAIN B. H. EVANS.

LINK WITH TASMANIA.

Mr. A. T. Saunders writes to the "Ade-

laide Register": Captain Beilby H. Evans,

whose remains were privately interred in the Cheltenham Cemetery, was the oldest surviving Port Adelaide ship master, hav-ing been born in 1830. In 1854 he was apprenticed to the sea, and in the centre board ketch Crest of the Wave (the first such vessel at Port Adelaide), arrived here on March 21, 1866. Captain Joseph Davis was in command, and Mr. Mortess, who had bought the vessel, was in the cabin. Hobart was Captain Evans's home port, where his brother was a ship owner, and where in 1863 he married one of the then well-known Garth family. Captain Evans was master of the brig Union, owned by his brother. She was one of the early and well-known Port Adelaide-Hobart traders. He brought the Annie Taylor and Lillie Hawkins here, and commanded in 1876 the Lilly schooner for Mr. Alexander Russell, and thereafter was master of several South Australian vessels, among them the brig Prospero, the three-masted schooners Floral Star and Sedwell Jane, which lat-ter he bought in England for Mr. Coombe, of Port Pirie, the ex tea clipper, Heather Bell, in which he traded to London, the Frey Bentos, an ex-Spanish slaver (from which I obtained some of the slaves' leg irons), and the steamers Eleanor, Amy, and Falcon. In December, 1893, and after, he was in charge of the steam launches at the Semaphore, and his last command was the schooner Beatrice, which from the early sixties was a British Ad-miralty surveying schooner on the coast of South Australia and the Northern Terri-tory for many years. The Beatrice, when commanded by Royal Navy men such as Messrs. Guy, Hutchinson, Howard, and Goalen, was a handsome vessel, and when Captain Evans had charge of her

after she had been for some years a mer-chantman she soon was about as neat and natty as she had been under the naval officers. Mr. Lykke, of Alberton, father of Mr. Lykke, the Adelaide painter, was one of the crow of the Beatrice nearly 60 years ago; when she flew the Admiralty pennant. Captain Evans has left a widow, two daughters, three sons, and many grand and greatgrandchildren. Mrs. Evans is an interesting lady, with an excel-lent memory for old southern Tasmanian affairs. Her maternal grandfather, whose name was Bellette, was of French descent, was an Imperial commissariat officer at Norfolk Island, and was transferred to Hobart Town. Mrs. Evans' father, Mr. Garth, settled at Police Point, on the Huon, where she was born, and lived there and in Hobart in her youth. Possibly from her French blood she has an excel-lent, flexible, correct, and copious Eng lish vocabulary, with some quaint and oldworld idioms. Even in 1875 thc Huon dis trict was primitive, and the "Register" of March 2, 1875, has an account of the sail-ing passage boat between Hobart and tne Huon being upset and sunk by a sudden squall in sjoht of their Huon home, and of four persons being drowned. The body of one young married woman, with her infant clasped in her tums, was recovered.