NEW LORD MAYOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23332, 26 October 1937, Page 10

NEW LORD MAYOR

LIVED IN NELSON HEAD OF FAMOUS FIRM FAMILY’S 600 YEARS OF HISTORY (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) ' LONDON, Sept. 29. London’s next Lord Mayor .Sir Harry Twyford, Alderman of Cripplegate, and governing director of George Brettle and Co., warehousemen and hosiery manufacturers, spent a period of his life in Nelson. It was in 1906 that, as superintendent of the New Zealand station of the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, he reached the highest position open to him and resigned Previous to his appointment in New Zealand, Sir Harry had served the company at Singapore,- Saigon, Penang Foochow, Java, and Sydney. In 1913, owipg to the death of his uncle, Colonel H. R. Twyford, he found himself in control of the firm of George Brettle and Co. He formed the business into a limited company in 1914. Sir Harry entered the corporation for Cripplegate in 1930 as a member of the Common Council, being elected alderman in the same year. He served as sheriff in 1934.- He will be the third representative of George Brettle and Co. to become Lord Mayor. Sir Henry Knight, Lord Mayor in 1882-3, started his business career with the firm, and Sir James Duke was at the Mansion House in 1848. Sir Harry Twyford is a member of four guilds. He has just been elected Master of the Parish Clerks’ Company, has served as Master of the Framework Knitters’ Company, and he is a Mason and a Loriner. ' The firm of George Brettle and Co. was established about 150 years ago, and it is recorded that the firm made • silk stockings for George IV, the vest Nelson was wearing at Trafalgar, and the stockings which Queen Victoria wore on the day she was crowned. The founder introduced his. three sons to the business, and the widow of the last surviving son married a Colonel Twyford, from whom Sir Harry Twyford is descended. For 600 years the Twyfords have been men of importance in the city’s affairs. There was a Sir Nicholas Twyford, goldsmith to Richard 11, who was sheriff in 1377. It. is on record that he was paid the large sum of £22 7s 4d by the King for supplying two drinking ewers and cups. He was with Mayor Walworth at Smithfield in 1381 when the rebel, Wat Tyler, was struck down, and in the year following his shrievalty became Mayor himself. He did not. however, reach the office of Mayor without considerable trouble and some bloodshed. His rival was one Brembre. a protege of Edward 111. , . Brembre’s election as Mayor In 1383 led to rioting between the Pepperers, his supporters, and the Goldsmiths, the. backers of Twyford. There were furious scenes in St. Paul’s, but the Brembre party won the day, and for a time Twyford was kept in custody. His day came in 1388. In the February of that year the unfortunate Brembre, having been condemned for treason, was, at Tyburn, “suddenly turned off, and the executioner cutting his throat, he died.” _ . Lady Twvford is an Australian. She tells an interesting story of life at Kalgoorlie in the old days. In 1889 there was such a scarcity of water that it was being sold at 2s 6d for two quarts, and not ’asy to get at that. Horses were being given beer made from the brackish water from the mines, unfit for human consumption. They had refused the brackish water, but drank the beer!