William F. E. Smith has beets appointed a Justice of the Peace for the County Borough of Newport. He is a former student of the Catholic Workers' College, Oxford, and a foundation member of the Newport Council K.S.C. A member of Newport Town Council since 1924 and Mayor of the Borough in 1934, he comes of a family connected with the public life of the town for many generations, an ancestor, John Frost, who is commemorated by a tablet at his birthplace and a bust in the local museum was Mayor of the town over a hundred years ago and was sentenced to deportation for his part in the Chartist riots.
Alderman Smith is well-known for his work as a lecturer and C.S.G. worker. He has travelled widely and together with his Catholic confrere on the Town Council instigated the " Newport Resolution " since adopted by many other town councils, demanding equal treatment for non-provided and provided schools under the Hadow Scheme. He is chairman of the Newport Free Libraries Committee. He is a native of Newport.
A new Mass-centre has been started in the Bletchley district at Hog Pound Farm Hostel, Steart Hill, near Little Harwood. Fr. Leonard Tomlinson, priest-in-charge of St. Thomas Aquinas, Bletehley, said Mass there for the first time on August 2. Every facility has been given by Capt. G. Pitt (retd.) who is in charge of the Irish farm-workers employed there and an old barn has been cleared by the men themselves for a chapel.