OBITUARY.

Feilding Star, Volume II, Issue 365, 9 September 1907, Page 2

OBITUARY.

♦ DEATH OF MR W. R. E. BROWN. An early Wellington resident has passed away in the person of Mr W. it. E. Brown, who died at his residence, Tinakori road, on Saturday, after a brief illness, in his seventyeighth year. The deceased was the son of Major Edward Brown, of the 63rd Regiment, and his mother was th« daughter of Colonel John Balcombe, of Reading. As a youth he was educated for the army, but, having a fondness for travel, he abandoned this and went to Cape Colony on a huning expedition. After returning to England for a brief sojourn, he came to New Zealand ux the barque Surge, arriving in Wellington in December, 1855, with his wife, the daughter of the Rev. John Tucker, of Keynshani, near Bath, whom lie married the previous year. Shortly after his arrival Mr Brown took up land on the old Ohariu road, near Johnsonville. In 1868 he was appointed Clerk to the Bench in Wellington, riding to and fro daily. In the Maori trouble that arose the following year, necessitating the enrolment of the militia, he was appointed captain of a town company, which, however, he had to relinquish under a regulation requiring Civil Servants to resign their commissions. Mr Brown was later appointed Curator of Intestate Estates and Inspoctor of Bankruptcy, holding these in conjunction with his other duties. On the abolition of these posts he took up the duties of private secretary to Mr (afterwards Sir) William Fox, then Premier, and later was appointed Secretary to the Cabinet, which position he held under the Premierships of Sir William .Fox, Mr Waterhouse, and Sir Julius Yogel, ] subsequently relinquishing the post to take that of Registrar-General, which he held until his retirement in 1892. His wife predeceased him by two years. 1 Deceased leaves the following sons and daughters : — Mr Edward Balcombe Brown, of Messrs Brown and Dean; ] Mr F. B. Brown, of Wanganui, and Mrs William Taylor, of Feilding, all l of whom are at present on visits to j Europe; Mr C. W. Brown, lately of ' Shannon, who was staying with his father at the time of his death; Mrs A. E. Knight, of Napier, and Mrs ; Brownlow Horrocks, of Parnell, Auck- t land.— N.Z. Times. }