OBITUARY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17039, 25 June 1917, Page 3

OBITUARY

MR ROBERT GIENDINING

A CITIZEN.

It m with deep regret that we have- to record the death, which occurred at 5 o clock on Saturday morning, of Mr Robert tileudinmg, whoso namo ia known throughout Now Zealand ae ono of tho founders of tho firm of Rose and Glendining, warehousemen and manufacturers. Mr Glendining had been confined to h;s house for several months with serious iHr"W. which might at any timo have doveloped unfavourably, bo that his death waa not -wholly unexpected. Air Glendining' wae bom in Dumfries, Scotland, ia 1641. After completing a public school education in his native place, ho served an apprenticeship to the drapery trade, and in 1862 sailed in tho ship Evening Star for Dunodin. In August of the aaino year ho joined with Mr John Ross in tho purchase of a retail drapery business m Princes street. Tho shop stood just whore Messrs Brown, Ewing, and Co.'a premises now are, and tho business was disposed of to that firm four years later. Messrs Ross and Glendining then entered tho wholesale business, .• and established themselves in Stafford street, on the site of their present liat factory. The business progressed rapidly, and in 1879 the partners ontered upon tho manufacturing business in the Roslvu Woollen Mills. Keen business insight, shrewd judgment, and vigorous enterprise led to the steady extension of all tho firm's activities, till they built up, it is not too much to say, a world-wide reputation for thoir manufactures. Thoir business was converted several years 'ago into a company which possesses 40 acres of ground in the Kaikorai Valley. 15 acres of tho property being taken up by tho mill prernisea and the reservoirs. Messrs Ross and Lrlendmjng were not only the manufacturers of wool into the mushed product; their enterprise led them to grow their own wool. To enable them to do this they secured large station properties, their Lander and Blackstono Hill Stations containing about 120,000 acres, and the Barewood Station 30,000 acres. These runs at one time carried as many as from 80,000 to 90,000 eheep. The operation of tho land tor settlements policy of recent years had necessarily, however, tho effect of materially curtailing tho pastoral activities of the firm.

Mr Glendining, while dovoting his energies during the greater part of his life to the building up of the great business witii which his name will always be associated, also found time for many other activities of a more or less publio nature. He was for many years one of the commissioners of the Dunedin City sinking fund. At the time of the Boer war to was a member of the Otago Patriotic .Fund Committee. He acted for a few years as chairman of the Otago Drainage and Sewerage Board, of which ho was ono of the original members; he was one of tho founders and a director of the National Insurance Company; ho was local director for the Mutual Life Association of Australia, and a director of the Perpetual Trustees, Estate, and Agency Company and of various mining companies. _ Mr Gii:ndining was married in Melbourne m 1867 to Miss Mary Cassels, of Dunedin, and they have two sons and two daughters. Mr Robert Glendining, the younger son, is manager of the Roslyn Mille, and tho elder son (Mr J. E. Glendinmg) is associated with, the head office of the firm Tho elder daughter is Mrs F. W. Mitchell, and the younger is unmarried. Mr Glendining was for many vears an elder of Knos Church, and took a leading part m tho erection of the present splendid building. He was ako a member of the Presbyterian Church Board of Property, and he nabhrually made the Presbyterian Church generally, and Knox Church in particular, fcha channel of his generous benevolences. The greater part of his charity was distributed quite privately, but three instances of his wise and generous liberality are 1 known to the public, and will always bo gratefully remembered in connection with hue name The Winter Garden, in the Botanic 'Gardens represents a gift to the community that was at once exnressive of Mr Glendining's love for flowers and of his lovo for the dty of his adoption. He built the extensive Knox Church Sunday School bufldiags at the corner of King , and Frederick (streets, and lie built and equipped and largely supported the large Presbyterian Orphanage at Andereon Bay known as tho Glendining Home. '