FAMOUS TWIN DIES AT 90

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 69, 6 January 1947, Page 2

FAMOUS TWIN DIES AT 90

ONLY ONCE PARTED A little piece of London passed with the last of the City’s famous bachelor twins. William Oliver, head of the Fleet Street firm of Oliver Brothers, master printers, died at his flat in Charing Cross Road in his 90th year, proud in the fact that he had not deserted London. Twice he was bombed out in the City, and only on the third occasion did he leave it—for the flat in Charing Cross Road, a mile away, where he died. His twin brother John died 12 years ago, when they lived together in the City in New Street Hill. They had been born in the shadow of St. Paul’s. So much alike were the twins when they strolled together through the City that even their friends could scarcely tell which was William and which was John. Once only were they parted and then it was for three longs days. This parting caused the twins so much unhappiness that they vowed “never to part again.” And they kept their promise until John died in their home above the printing works where their mother had passed away seven years earlier at the age of 102. Almost to the end of her life she ruled them with a rod of iron, and after she had gone they decided to live on together with only their pug dog and a parrot as companions. Polly, the parrot, alone survives. She was with her master when he died.