The Rev. Arthur William Evelyn McComb, vicar of St. John de Sepulchre, Norwich, suddenly collapsed near the City Hall yesterday and died before an ambulance could take him to hospital. To-day would have been his 57th birthday.
The news of Mr. McComb's death will be received with regret by many friends in Norwich and in all parts of Norfolk. For nine years his kindly personality has gained him the friendship of hundreds of patients of the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, of which he was chaplain. As recently as Wedensday evening he visited patients there.
A native of Beccles, Mr. McComb was the only son of the late Dr. W. T. McComb. From Fauconberge School he went to Durham University. Before entering the Church he held a commission in the Army Service Corps, but he relinquished it within a year to continue theological study.
After two years' missionary work in New Brunswick he returned to England, to become curate at St. Andrew's, Croydon. Four years later he went back to Canada to work in the Red Indian reservation of Ontario, as Rector of Ohsweken, and it was during that period that he met his wife, who, with an only daughter, survives him.
Mr. McComb, after three years in Canada, accepted an Ipswich curacy in 1918. He remained in East Anglia, with the exception of a short period of missionary work in Antigua, where he took charge of Tortola and other small islands.
He came to Norwich in 1923 as Rector of St. John Maddermarket, and seven years afterwards was appointed Rector of St. Margaret's -with- St. Swithun's. In that year he became chaplain to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was appointed to the living of St. John de Sepulchre three years ago on the retirement of the Rev. A. Henderson.