OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume V, Issue 259, 11 July 1895, Page 9

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.

We present our readers this week with an excellent portrait of one of Auckland’s leading citizens, a man who by his sterling worth and undoubted business ability has earned for himself an enviable position amongst us. Louis Ehrenfried, Esq., J.P., is one of those who, having come to the colonies when quite a lad in the fifties, has had to undergo no small share of the privations and hardships which beset the career of our early colonists. Fortune and adversity have alternated in his career, and under both circumstances he has displayed qualities of heart and mind, which have caused him to be respected and admired. In 1862 he migrated to Otago, and, after undergoing many vicissitudes, found himself in a few years the owner of a large station at Mataura, but owing to misplaced confidence (having been induced to become guarantee for a friend for a very large sum of money without any consideration at all) in the usual the citizens presented them with an address and a piece of plate, expressing the regret and loss course of events had ultimately to realise his own

assets, which necessitated the sale of the station and all other property he was possessed of. A start had once more to be made on the West Coast, but as is usual with goldfields, prosperity was soon followed by adverse times, and Mr Ehrenfried found himself in difficulties in thestore business in which he had embarked, and was compelled to leave some of his creditors unpaid when he left the district. But he always had the one fixed idea before him,and some years after had the pleasure of paying in full the remaining balance, which was, perhaps, the largest amount ever paid in New Zealand (and we are pleased to say there are some others of lesser amounts) by any man to his creditors after having been legally discharged of his liabilities. The action was, therefore, all the more meritorious. The happy creditors immediately met together and presented Mr Ehrenfried with a piece of silver plate to mark their appreciation of his action. In 1868 he, in conjunction with his brother Bernhard, who was always his companion and coadjutor, of whom he never fails to speak in the most glowing terms, and whose death in 1869 was a terrible blow to him, established a brewery at the Thames, which was carried on with considerable success for many years. During hia residence at the Thames Mr L. Ehrenfried took a prominent part in social and municipal affairs, and was highly esteemed by his fellow citizens, who elected him Mayor about J 872. While at the Thames he established a branch business here, and in 1885, having purchased Messrs. R. Whitson and Son’s brewery, he made Auckland his headquarters. Previous to Mr and Mrs Ehrenfried’s departure from the Thames the place w'juld sustain, as in all matters of charity and social functions Mr and Mrs

Ehrenfried were always foremost. To-day he iff one of the leading brewers and wine and spirit merchants in New Zealand, his output of beer being the largest in the North Island, and employs a very large number of hands. He is also chairman of the Auckland Brewers and Wine and Spirit Merchants’ Association. Here, as at the Thames, his unostentatious charity and his geniality of disposition have made him many friends, while his business ability and tact have gained for him a prominent and enviable position, while above all, “ his word iff his bond.”