DEATH OF MR R. GILLIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 746, 18 June 1886, Page 18

DEATH OF MR R. GILLIES.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Dunedjn, June 15. Mr Robert Gillies, ex-member for Bruce, died this morning. The news of the death of Mr Robert Gillies will be read with sincere mourning. Hia family have been well known in Otago for about thirty-four years, and he and other members of it from the important positions held by them were esteemed in ail parts of the Colony. Mr Gillies, with his father and mother, and the rest of a large family, arrived in Otago in 1852. His father, the late ?>lr John Gillies, was a lawyer, and had practised his profession in Scotland with success. He died not many years ago, h»\Ug hid the satisfaction of seeing his sons prosperous and respected, and having himself won the geneial regard of his fellow-colonists. Mr Robert Gillies, as a lad, entered the Otago Survey Department as a cadet, and having learned the profession, became in time a district surveyor. In 1861 he went into business for himself as a surveyor and hind agent, and was afterwards joined by Mr O. H. Street. The firm of Gillies and Street - c irned on a large business for many years iu Duaedla. Latterly it and the firm of Connell and Moodie were merged in the Perpetual Trustees Estate and Agency Company of New Zealand, Mr Ilobirt Gillies being Chairman of Directors. For a short time he was a member of the House of Representatives, but be had to rssiga his seat ca account of bad health. lie continued to taxe a share in the business of tin Company in spite of a disease—aneurism oi the aort?* which might close his life at any moment. He was a man not only of unusual ability, but of the most upright and sterling character. In his domestic relations he was exceedingly happy, and he leaves a widow and a fine young family 7 to mourn his loss, Mrs Gillies was a daughter of her husband’s late partner, Mr O. H Street, who settled siine yens ago in Auckland.