A Sea Veteran.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 20, 18 December 1906, Page 5

A Sea Veteran.

Thus the 44 Observer ” : —Captain William Farquhar, the “commodore” of the Northern Steamship Company’s fleet, is receiving congratulations from all directions this week upon the promotion that awaits him. For at the end of the month Captain William—the Christian name must be emphasised him from his brother, Captain Alec Farquhar, another veteran of the same company’s servioe—retires from the command of the Clansman to take up the position coveted of the ancient mariner, a comfortable' shore billet. The office of “ ship’s husband,” or marine superintendent of the fleet, has been bestowed upon him, greatty to the satisfaction of his hosts of personal friends, and also to the advantage of the masters of the lesser vessels of the Northern fleet, who receive a general shift up in consequence.

An active sea-going service of 53 years entitles Captain William to look for some opportunity of enjoying the home life that is mostly denied to the sailor in commission. After trading as a boy on the African coast, and as a master mariner from Australian ports, he came to Auckland about 1868, just when the traffic to the Thames goldfield was opening up. One of the most enterprising ship-owners of hereabouts in those days was S. Hague Smith, also a Queen-street ironmonger on a large scale, and best remembered now from the penny tokens bearing his image and superscription, which formed a large part of the copper currency of the province. In his fleet Captain William commanded the Duke of Edinburgh arid the Go-ahead in the Thames pioneering trade till misfortune overtook the Hague Smith ventures and the vessels were sold. Then came the day of the Auckland Steam Packet Company, for which Captain William ran the Royal Alfred, also in the Thames trade, till she was sold to a Sydney firm. The Steam Packet Company carried on its business on a wide basis, and for two or three years the skipper had charge of the Star of the South, running a mail service from Port Chalmers, along the coast, and as far out as Fiji.

The nucleus of the big Northern Company’s fleet of to-day consisted then of the Rowe na and the lona, owned by the late Captain MacGregor aud other Aucklanders. Captain William commanded the lona from the time she was put into coimnissiofy jy 1875. On the present company being formed he continued in its service, commanding first the Wellington, then the Glenelg, and finally the Clansman. In this vessel he has seen twenty-three solid years of trading to the northern ports and Tauranga, broken only by the trip which he made to England to bring the Wakatere to the colony. Captain Farquhar’s standing as a veteran in the mercantile service is marked by the fact that his certificate as a foreign-going master was only the fourteenth issued in the colony, and his long career has been unmarred by mishap. Practically every settler on the eastern coast of Auckland ranks him as a personal friend, and will be glad to hear of his promotion to a post of dignity and comparative leisure.