OBITUARY

Southland Times, Issue 22008, 6 May 1933, Page 5

OBITUARY

MR JAMES ANGUS. NATIVE OF INVERCARGILL. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) Melbourne, May 5. The death is announced of Mr James Angus, aged 73, a native of Invercargill, from heart failure, following a motor accident. He was vice-president of the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind, and, though blind himself, worked energetically for many .years for the Institute. Mr Angus was born at Clifton, and though he may not be remembered by many Invercargill residents, his father, the late Mr J. Angus, will certainly be. The latter was a contractor who had a quarry at Greenhills and a stonecrushing plant near where Fleming’s mill now stands. He secured contracts in the construction of some of Southland’s early railways. He then left with his family for Australia and became a member of one of the largest railway contracting firms in the Commonwealth, Topham, Angus and Smith, who constructed lines in the various States. Later he acquired coal-mining interests at Newcastle and was identified with large commercial concerns in Sydney. By the irony of fate he lost his life at over 80 years of age when crossing a railway line near Sydney through being struck down by a locomotive. The third partner in the contracting firm, Mr H. J. Smith, was also an early Invercargill business man and large landowner.