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Extract from the "Hongkong Telegraph" of 6th October,
THE LATE HARBOUR MASTER.
The local Press have paid their just tribute to the sterling worth of a Public servant by whose untimely end the Colony and the community have been all the poorer by the loss of an official of whom it can be said with no exaggeration of language that he was an officer whose equal it should be difficult for the Colony to find to replace the head of the harbour department in the important shipping port of Hongkong. The sympathy which is extended by the Press in Shanghai will be appreciated by the friends of the late Harbour Master in Hongkong. "It will be with deep regret," says the N. C. Daily News, "that the many friends of Captain Barnes-Lawrence, Harbour Master of Hongkong, will learn of his sudden death yesterday and instinctively sincere sympathy with his widow and daughter will be expressed. Captain Barnes-Lawrence came out to Hongkong in 1904 to fulfill the onerous duties of Harbour Master at a time when the problem of providing accommodation sufficient for the rapidly increasing number of ships putting in at that port was causing much worry and not a little anxiety to those in authority. He soon settled down to his duties and obtained a sound knowledge of the local conditions and difficulties. He gave considerable consideration to the question of providing supplementary deep water anchorage; and the typhoon shelter problem was always uppermost in his mind. By his work more than by his speeches, in the Legislative Council, the steps he thought it prudent and found himself able to take were noted, and before the recent typhoon he had come to the conclusion that, though the exchequer could ill afford the money, yet proper typhoon anchorages must be found and Hongkong made a harbour in the proper sense of the word. In the public life of the Colony Captain Barnes-Lawrence took an unostentatious part; as a public servant he had his critics but never have they been pronounced. At "The Chalet," the Peak, many a resident in the Far East will remember being received by a typical, genial naval officer. He will be sadly missed."
1906.
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