The Henson Journals

[121]

Saturday, July 4th, 1925.

Ella and Fearne went off after breakfast. I spent the morning in writing letters, revising sermons, & interviewing an Ordination candidate named Savage, who aspires to be ordained at Advent. Then, after an early lunch, I motored to Darlington, and took train for King's Cross. My compagnon de voyage was a young man named Thomas Hay, who was journeying to London to be examined in Chemisry by the University. We had much conversation, & I invited him to propose himself for a visit to Auckland. Probably I shall never see him again.

N.B. T.H. wrote to me, & we exchanged several letters before the year ended. My letter in support of Lord Durham's appeal appeared in the Morning Post. I read through an account of Henrietta Countess of Oxford (1694–1755) by the Librarian of Welbeck, Mr R. W. Goulding.

Ralph & Kitty carried us off to the Savoy Hotel, London, where 'Independence Day' was celebrated by a Banquet over which the American Ambassador presided. It was a terribly dull business until it merged into absurdities which would have seemed in a Bethnal Green "smoker". The speech of the evening was delivered by the Hon. Nicholas Longworth, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who is son–in–law to Roosevelt. I was terribly bored, & glad to get away.

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