Mr. Edward Charles Powell was appointed Captain of the Blenheim Rifles in August, 1898. He had been actively associated with volunteering since 1891, and was in the Borough School Cadets two years before that date. Mr. Powell was born in London, in 1874, and is a son of Mr. Edward Powell, of Westport. He came to New Zealand with his parents in 1880, by the ship “Northumberland,” was educated in Wellington and Blenheim, and served his time to surgical dentistry at Blenheim under his father. Mr. Powell was also superintendent of the Church of England Sunday school. He afterwards entered the church, and is now (1905) an Anglican clergyman in Canterbury.