BENEFACTOR OF NAVY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 143, 19 June 1931, Page 3

BENEFACTOR OF NAVY

LATE MR. G. S. READE. A PERMANENT MEMORIAL. ERECTION AT HILLSBOROUGH. AUCKLAND, June 17. The executors of the late Mr. Gifford Sherman Reade, who gave the whole of his great wealth to the Admiralty, have prepared a fitting joint memorial to himself and Airs. Reade for erection on graves at the Hillsborough Cemetery. After the design had been submitted to tho Admiralty for technical correction the work was put in the hands of a Torquay firm of stonemasons. It. is not yet known when the manumn will be ready for erection. A large Latin cross is a central fea ture of tho design, and an anchor is prominent on the base, where the names and particulars are inscribed. The monument is surrounded by a low Avail on which is recorded the nature of Air. Reade’s benefaction to the Navy. All’s. Reade died in Auckland on July 6, 1929, and Air. Reade on December 5 of the same year at the age of 85. World wide attention was focussed on his quiet life in the year before when the gift of his ancestral Holbrook eslate in Sullolk to the nation fora new naval school was made known. In this gift he divested himself of all but a small income sufficient to maintain him in his closing years. The straight, out gill of Ihe estate to the. Admiralty he endowed with a sum of money large enough to justify the Admiralty in erecting a college at, a cost of £1,000,000. It was estimated that the sum eventually a\ailab.c from the accumulated endowments would be considerably in excess of £1,000,000. Air. Kca.de’s fortune was amassed as tho proprietor of several tea estates in Assam, where he also acquired interests in many other industries, notably coal. Mr. Reade was accorded a naval funeral at the Hillsborough Cemetery and eight men from the New Zealand station acted as pallbearers. Oilieial wreaths were sent, from the Lords Uommissioners of the Admiralty, from the; commanders, officers and men of thei ships of the New Zealand station and! from the Royal Naval School at Green-1 wich.