SERVICE TO EMPIRE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1932, Page 13

SERVICE TO EMPIRE

LATE SIR OWEN COX. SHIPPING DURING THE WAR. Sir E. Owen Cox, who was chairman and managing director of Messrs. Birt and Co., Ltd., Sydney and Brisbane, from 1898 to 1929, died at Nice in the South of France on July 23. He had many friends in New Zealand. Sir Owen was born at Larne, in Wales, 68 years ago. He was the only son of the late Captain E. Cox, R.N., and went to sea at the early age of 14 years as a midshipman in a sailing vessel engaged in the New Zealand trade. In 1880 he settled in New Zealand, and for 14 years was engaged, first in banking, and later in a produce business. He returned to England in 1893, and engaged in shipping and produce businesses connected with the Australian and New Zealand trades. In 1898 Sir Owen went to Sydney as the head in Australia of Messrs. Birt and Co., Ltd., merchants, proprietors of refrigerating works, and shipowners’ representives. He Aad an unbroken connection with the firm until 1929, when he resigned and went to live in the South of France on the advice of his doctors. Throughout tho war he gave valuable service as deputy controller of I oversea shipping, a member of the I Commonwealth Shipping Board, chair- ' man of the Imperial Government Frozen Meat Shipping Committee, and of the Overseas Shipowners’ Central Committee of Australia, which handled all British Government requisitioned tonnage in Australia, and of the Overseas Shipping Representatives’ Association of Sydney. In recognition of his war services he was created in March, 1918, a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. In October, 1920, he was promoted to the first class, G.8.E., being the first Australian to receive either of these honours. In 1922 Sir Owen was appointed a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, from which he received leave of absence in 1929, and resigned at a later date, owing to his departure from Australia. Among Sir Owen’s many other public interests were the New South Wales Justices’ Association and the New Zealand Soldiers’ Reception Society, of both of which he was . president for several years; the New South Wales Soldiers’ Amelioration Committee; and the New South Wales branch of the Australian Red Cross Society. While chairman of the Overseas Shipowners’ Central Committee, he inaugurated a very creditable system of apportioning the limited space available during the war period over the various States according to their export demands. Equity was thus preserved, and satisfaction experienced by all concerned. It was he who was also largely responsible for the initiation of a system of economic loading, and fpr the cutting and enveloping carcases of mutton and lamb for shipment, which method effected a saving of about 33 per cent, in the space required for the carriage of frozen meat in insulated steamers. This proved a most valuable innovation during the war, when tonnage was so scarce, as 3000 carcases, by this method, could be carried in the space required for 2000 under the pre-war arrangement,

Sir Owen was chairman of the consultative council of the Nationalist Party from its formation in 1918 until he left Australia.