OBITUARY.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13632, 25 January 1913, Page 4

OBITUARY.

MR. ALEXANDER BROWN

We regret to learn of the death of Mr Alexander Brawn, of the Port, which occurred at a late hour last night. Mr. Brown had been manager of tin* Anchor I'oundry and identified with the Anchor bhippmg and Foundry Company, Ltd., as part owner for very many years. A man of few words, more given' to action than to speech, his influence has largely been responsible for the reputation of the Anchor Foundry fyr honest, reliable work, and under liis direction from time to time plant of considerable magnitude has been supplied to the general Government and various local bodies and firms, whilst the practical reconstruction and fitting with new engines of several of the Anchor Company's old fleet have been carried out under his direction.

Mr. Brown was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1830, and learned his trade as a mechanical engineer with Messrs. James Gray and.Co., of Glasgow, under whom he worked for about eight years.. In 1854 Mr. Brown was employed on the construction of the Great Eastern, and in the following year he became second engineer of a transport bound to the Crimea with troops. The Lyttelton, a small vessel of forty-eight tons, designed for the Now Zealand river trade, was constructed by the builders of the Great Eastern, and she sailed in August, 1859, with Mr. Brown as engineer. The little vessel had a very eventful and troublesome passage from the time she left the Thames, and put in successively at Cork, Cape de Verde, and Cape Coast Castle, wlure the captain and crew were stricken with fever, Mr. Brown, the mate, and the cabin boy alo)ie escaping. On November 23rd, 1860, she reached Wellington, where for some time she had boon given up as lost. After refitting, Mr. Brown took her to Lyttelton. He was lire sent at the "rush" to Gabriel's Gulfy in 1861, and in those days he ran the Lyttelton from Dunedin to Taeri. In 1862 she was bought by a Nelson firm for the trade botween Nelson and the Wairau, and formed the nucleus of the Anchor line of steamers.

Mr. Brown leaves three sons (Messrs. Thomas, John and Irvine Brown) and. two daughters. Mrs. Brown predeceased her husband some years.