The Venerable Archdeacon Thomas Samuel Grace , Vicar of Blenheim, is the second son of the Rev. Thomas Samuel Grace, and was born at sea during the voyage of his parents to New Zealand in 1850. He was partly educated at the Church of England Grammar school, Auckland. In 1869, he entered the Nelson Theological College, and afterwards went to England, where he was ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1873. During the following year he returned to New Zealand, and entered the Bishopdale Theological College, Nelson, as a chaplain and tutor. In 1881 he passed on to the Maori Mission under the Church Missionary Society, and was stationed at Putiki, Wanganui, where he remained until 1886, when he was appointed vicar of Blenheim; and he succeeded to the Archdeaconry of Marlborough at the death of Archdeacon Butt, who had for twenty-eight years faithfully fulfilled his duties in the district. Mr. Grace married a daughter of the late Captain Colt who married the second daughter of General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, of the Sikh war), and has five sons and four daughters.