OBITUARY

Evening Star, Issue 22682, 23 June 1937, Page 12

OBITUARY

SIR ERIC GEDDES Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, June 22. (Received June 23, at, 12.5 p.rn.) The death is announced of Sir Eric Geddes. great business career. Sir Eric Campbell Geddes was recognised as one of the world’s great business men. Born in India in 1h75, he was a son of the late Auckland Campbell Geddes, of Edinburgh, and the elder brother of Sir Auckland Geddes, another well-known business man of the war years. Sir Eric was educated at the Oxford Military College and Merchiston Castle School, at Edin-

burgh. His first business experience was gained at lumbering in the United States, and he was afterwards connected with the Baltimore and Ohio railway system. His knowledge was then made use of by the Rohilkhand and Kuraaton- Railway, in India, where he remained for some years. Returning to England, he joined the NorthEastern Railway Company under Sir George Gibb, and, having succeeded him in 1906, was himself the general manager of this line when the Great War commenced. Sir Erie Geddes was one of the business men whom Mr Lloyd George, on becoming Minister of Munitions, enlisted in the Government employ. He became Deputy Director-General of Munitions Supply in 1915, and the following year was appointed, though. a civilian. Director of General Transportation. and succeeded in bringing the British lines of communication in France into a high state of efficiency. He was knighted in 1916, and the next year he was created K.C.B. ana G.8.E., and was transferred to the Admiralty as controller in order to develop and utilise the whole of the shipbuilding resources of tho country and concentrate them under one authority. A month or two later, in spite of hawing no Parliamentary experience, he was appointed first Lord of the Adiralty, and was returned to tho House of Commons as M.P. for the borough of Cambridge. After the Armistice Mr Lloyd George made use of Sir Eric’s powers as an organiser by commissioning him to co-ordinate Government departments in regard to demobilisation. Ho left the Admiralty in order to preside over a new Ministry of Transport, but in 1920 there came a sudden break in trade, and it became evident that oven Great Britain could not afford such a department at such a time. In 1921 a Bill was introduced into Parliament by Sir Eric for the regrouping of the railways of Great Britain, and he afterwards resigned. Sir Eric’s next appointment was as the head of a small committee, which became known as the “Geddes Axe,” its task being to recommend public economies to the Government. In various reports in 1921-22 the committee recommended savings amounting to £86,000,000, but Sir Eric later complained that only a little more than half of this amount had actually been saved. In 1922 he left Parliament and returned to a business career, becoming chairman of the Dunlop Rubber Company and of Imperial Airways Limited. MR ADAM A. PATERSON > The death occurred in Dunedin yesterday of Mr Adam A. Paterson, a very old resident of the Molyneux district His father, James Paterson, came out from Scotland in the ship Jura in 1858, and four years later established a store at Port Molyneux. His eldest son, Mr William Paterson, after a long experience as a storekeeper at Puerua, retired to live at Dunedin, where he has filled the duties of secretary of the Otago Early Settlers’ Association with singular success. Adam Paterson was of a very modest and retiring character, but his sterling honesty and straightforwardness in business made him a general favourite with the Port Molyneux people during /a long periorf of storekeeping there. He is survived by his wife and a married daughter and a son, Mr A. E. Paterson, who is second assistant on the teaching staff of the Balclutha School.