OBITUARY

Otago Witness, Issue 3333, 30 January 1918, Page 40

OBITUARY

MR WILLIAM A. EWING. By the death of Mr William A. Ewing another of the early pioneers of the dominion has gone. Mr (Ewing was born at Craigmill, near Stirling, Scotland, in 1838. He came out in the ship Seville in 1859, took part in the Gabriel's, Waipori, and Dunstan diggings, and later visited Australia for the Snowy River diggings, but soon returned to New Zealand. In the early seventies ho started a flaxmill at Waihola, which was afterwards removed to Wangaloa; but flaxmilling in those days, before the advsut of the railways, had too many difficulties to contend with to be a successful and profitable industry. The mill was closed down, and he came back to Dunedin, and joined the late Mr John Gracio in a building and contracting business in Moray Dln.ce. on the site now occupied by the municipal baths. From thi3 business he retired some 20 years ago, and had lived a quiet life in his home at Elm row, retaining his interest in the manage--ment of the Ewing Phosphate Company (Ltd.), of which he was the founder and a director. It was really Mr Ewing's enthusiastic interest in mineralogy and collecting of mineral specimens that led to the discovery of the phosphate rock deposits at Clarendon and Milburn. .. Further than acting for some years as a member of the i old Kalkorai Road Board, Mr Ewing did not take any active part in public life, but ho led a useful and active life during the 60 years he spent here. It was a splendid example of the type of Scottish pioneers who came out in the early days and laid the foundations of the prosperity now enjoyed by the Otago settlement. Mr Ewing's wife predeceased him some 12 years ago. The deceased gentleman had enjoyed his usual comparatively robust state of health up to about a week ago, when he was compelled to take to his bed. He gradually sank, and died peacefully at an early hour this morning from senile decay.