George Proctor Howell MA, (3/11/1874-29/11/1907). "a scholar by nature"

The Naseby School Committee met on Monday last, 21st April, and selected a name to be sent on to the board for a teacher of secondary subjects in the District High School. Naseby. It may be pointed out that the school committee have hail great difficulty in carrying this subject to this conclusion. There was nothing else for it. 

The committee kept pegging away, and are now in view of the so much to be desired goal. Naseby is the centre of a large district, with many about, and its claims to a District High School have been long recognised as reasonable and just. The committee have been very fortunate in the names sent in for the appointment, any one of the teachers — three in all — referred to would have been an ornament to the school. The name selected for the appointment is George Proctor Howell. Mr Howell is a very distinguished graduate of the New Zealand University — i.e., an M.A. He studied for this at the Otago University, and furnishes certificates from the professors of that institution. Prof. Gilray says — "Mr Howell has proved himself an excellent student and a careful and scholarly writer of English prose. On the linguistic side of the study I have no hesitation in saying that he is the ablest student I have ever had in the whole course of my experience as a teacher. His work is accuracy itself. He is a true scholar and. a splendid linguist. He is quite at home in four languages — Latin, French, German and Anglo-Saxon." Professor Gilray also adds "Mr Howell is a man of the highest character — a scholar by nature as well as by acquirement and a perfect gentleman." Mr G. M. Thomson, Dunedin High School says — "I have the highest opinion of Mr Howell's character." It may be marked also that Mr Howell has had four years' experience in the teaching required in the District High School. He had, last year, two pupils of the Pharmacy Board and three for matriculation, and all passed. One of his University pupils last year gained a senior scholarship of the New Zealand University. Mr Howell also teaches bookkeeping, typewriting and shorthand. Altogether the Naseby District High School seems to be very fortunate in the of such a man.  -Mount Ida Chronicle, 25/4/1902.

DEATHS

HOWELL. — On November 29, at Rock and Pillar (suddenly), George Proctor Howell, M.A., beloved husband of Agnes Hay and son of Ann and the late George Howell, Mosgiel; aged 33 years.  -Otago Daily Times, 9/12/1907.

Birth.

HOWELL. — On the 11th February, at George street, North Dunedin, the wife of the late George Proctor Howell, M.A. — a daughter.  -Evening Star, 13/2/1908.

The place known as Rock and Pillar was a stop on the Central Otago Railway.  In the early 120th century there was a small tuberculosis sanatorium there.  It is possible that George Proctor was under treatment there and suddenly succumbed.

East Taieri Cemetery.