Leslie Edward Williams, 10/1877-7/11/1905. "a musician of a very high order"

OBITUARY.

MR LESLIE E. WILLIAMS, LL B.

A large number of our readers will receive with regret the news of the untimely death of Mr Leslie Edward Williams. Mr Williams had a distinguished career — first at the Otago High School, and afterwards at the University of Otago. At the time of his death he was a member of the firm of Haggitt, Brent, and Williams, barristers and solicitors. He was the son of Mr Henry Williams, the well-known manager of the National Insurance Company, and was born in October, 1877. He entered the Otago High School in 1886, passed through the school with great credit, and was dux in 1894. In 1895 he entered the Otago University, having won a junior scholarship in the New Zealand University. In 1897 he won the senior scholarship in Latin, and in 1898 he received his B.A. degree. In the following year he won high honours in Latin and French, and proceeded to his M.A. degree. He then entered upon a course of study in law, and took the LL.B. degree in 1901. After this he paid a visit to England, where he enjoyed a wellearned holiday, rendered all the more delightful by his cultured tastes in literature, music, and architecture. For a period of nearly five years, if we include the holiday he spent in England, he was clerk in the office of Messrs Kenyon and Hosking. At the end of that time, as we have said, he became a partner in the firm of Haggitt, Brent, and Williarns. Those who are best qualified to judge looked upon him as a most able, accurate, and high principled lawyer; and there is little doubt that if it had not been for his premature death he had a very distinguished career before him. He was not satisfied with the ordinary attainments of a lawyer, but he threw into his legal studies a thoroughness and earnestness which could not have failed to place him in the front rank of the profession. To many of our readers he was well known as a musician of a very high order. Probably no one in the colony was more richly endowed by Nature with musical gifts, and one of the principal pleasures which he enjoyed during his visit to Europe was in listening to the magnificent music which he heard in Paris and London. The members of the Knox Church congregation will remember him affectionately for the service he rendered them in taking the organ and choir practice after the death of the late Mr A. J. Barth. We have seldom had to chronicle a career more full of promise or one checked more sadly and unexpectedly.  -Otago Witness, 15/11/1905.

Southern Cemetery, Dunedin.  DCC photo.