Obituary Mr L.R. Fowler

Press, 10 November 1980, Page 23

Obituary

Mr L.R. Fowler

Mr Louis Raynor Fowler, who was an authority on the town milk industry, died in Christchurch recently. He was 71. Mr Fowler was manager of Canterbury Dairy Farmers, Ltd, for about 23 years before his retirement at the end of 1973. At that time he said that he had seen the town milk industry in Christchurch emerge from what the Milk Commission had described in 1943 as a state of chaos into something that was well organised and — hich he believed was giving good service to the public. Mr Fowler was bom at Midhurst, Taranaki, in the centre of a dairying district. He went to school there and then to Stratford Technical High School.

In 1925, he joined the Justice Department in New Plymouth, where he worked until 1939. For the last seven years of that period he was seconded to the Mortgage Adjustment Commissions (rural and urban) in the district. The secretary of both, he was, however, involved particularly with the rural commission and in that role had extensive contact with the dairy industry in Taranaki. In 1939, he shifted to the head office of the State Advances Corporation in Wellington and before coming to Christchurch in 1950 was involved in industrial, local body, and rehabilitation lending, work which again brought him into' contact with the milk industry.

In 1950, Mr Fowler joined Canterbury Dairy Farmers as accountant, but with a promise of assuming the managership if he was satisfactory. His subsequent appointment as manager was made retrospective to the date that he had joined the company.

Until 1969, Mr Fowler was manager of only the producer company but when the company shifted to its new premises in Blenheim Road he became manager also of the processing company. In the last year before his retirement he was also joint manager of the Plains Cooperative Dairy Company, which was formed by Canterbury Dairy Farmers, and the Tai Tap.u Central Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd, to set up a spray-drying unit at Blenheim Road. There were a number of important developments with which Mr Fowler was associated during his managership of the company. About 1954, a balancing station was established at Kaiapoi to separate surplus milk to produce cream for the local domestic trade, any surplus going to the Tai Tapu company and the skim milk being processed into powder. In 1959, the company started a campaign to eradicate voluntarily brucellosis from its suppliers’ herds, which was substantially achieved within two years. The company was a pioneer in this area and its campaign was the forerunner of a national eradication scheme. Tanker collection of milk was also instituted, refrigerated vats being installed On farms.

The company also bought the shares held by the Christchurch City Council in the Barbadoes Street treatment plant and this paved the way for the company to set about planning a new treatment plant on a new site which was completed in 1969. This plant took over the functions of the Barbadoes Street plant and also the balancing station. A man who was highly regarded and respected for his knowledge of the industry, Mr Fowler is survived by three step-child-ren.