BENEFACTOR OF NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 143, 19 June 1931, Page 6

BENEFACTOR OF NAVY

LATE MR. G. S. READE

A PERMANENT MEMORIAL

Tho executors of the latb Mr. Gifford Sherman Eoade, who gave the whole of his great wealth to the Admiralty, havo prepared a fitting joint momorial to himself and Mrs. Eeade for erection on their graves at tho Hillsborough Cemetery. After tho design had been submitted to the Admiralty for toehnical correction the work was put in the hands of 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 tho base, where tho names and particulars are inscribed. The monument is surrounded by, a low wall on which is recorded the nature of Mr. Eeado's benefaction to the Navy.

Mrs. Beade died in Auckland on 6th July, 1929, and Mr. Eeade on sth December of the same year at the age of 85 (states the "New Zealand Herald"). World-wide attention was focused on his quiet life in the year before when the gift of his ancestral Holbrook estate in Suffolk to'the nation for a new naval school was made known. In this gift ho divested himsolf of all but a small income sufficient to maintain him in his closing years. Tho straight out gift of tho estate to the Admiralty he endowed with a sum of money large enough to justify tlw Admiralty in erecting a cdllego at a cost of £1,000,000. It was estimated that the sum eventually available from the accumulated endowments would be considerably in excess of £1,000,000.

Mr. Beade'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. Eeade was accorded a naval ; funeral at the Hillsborough Cemetery, ; and eight men from the New Zealand station acted as pall-bearers. Official ' wreaths wore sent from the Lords Com- ' missioners of the Admiralty, from the . commanders, officers, and men of the , ships of the New, Zealand station and ; from tho Boyal Naval School at i Greenwich, . ' _ j