NAVY’S GRATITUDE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 226, 20 June 1931, Page 6

NAVY’S GRATITUDE

Death of Benefactor MEMORIAL TO BE ERECTED The executors of the late Mr. Gifford Sherman Reade, who gave the'whole of his wealth to the Admiralty, have prepared a fitting joint memorial to himself and Mrs. Reade for erection on their graves at the riiilsborougb Cemetery. After the design had been submitted to the Admiralty for technical correction, the work was put in the liandsiof a Torquay firm of stonemasons. It is not’ yet known When the monument will be ready for erection. A large Latin cross is a central feature of the design, and an anchor is prominent •on the base, where the names and particulars are inscribed. The monument is surrounded by a low wall on which is recorded the nature bf Mr. Reade's benefaction to the Navy. ' Mrs. Reade died in Auckland on July 6, 1929, and Mr. Reade on December 5 of the same year, at the age of 85. World-wide attention was focused on his quiet life in tho year before 1 when the gift of his ancestral Holbyook estate in Suffolk to the nation for a new naval school was made known. .In this gift, he divested himself of all but. a small income sufficient to maintain him in his closing years. The straight-out gift of the estate to thJ Admiralty he endowed with a sum of money large enough to justify the Admiralty in erecting a college at a cost of £1,060,000 It was estimated that the sum eventually available from the accumulated endowments would be considerably in excess of £1.000,000. Mr. Reade’s fortune was amassed as the proprietor of several tea estates in Assam, where he also acquired interests in many other industries, notably coal. Mr. Reade was Accorded a naval funeral at the Hillsborough Cemetery, and eight men from the New Zealand station acted as pall-bearers. Official wreaths were sent from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, from tlie commanders, officers and men of the ships of the New Zealand station, and from the Royal Naval School at Greenwich.