BUILDER OF SHIPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 347, 7 May 1928, Page 16

BUILDER OF SHIPS

DEATH OF MR. W. H. BROWN Not only as a builder of fast schooners but as a far-seeing councillor, will Mr. William Hoile Brown, who died yesterday, at the age of 90 years, be remembered. He was really responsible for the passing of the scheme to provide Devonport with a 100 ft promenade from the dock to North Head, and he insisted that the streets at Devonport should be a chain wide and properly formed before they were handed over. Born in one of the Martello towers erected in Kent when the nation feared a Napoleonic invasion, Mr. Brown soon showed the wonderlust. When he was a lad he went to California, and then on a trip to Australia he was wrecked at Samoa. The survivors were taken to Sydney on a missionary boat after they had been marooned for several weeks. Mr. Brown came to New Zealand in the Moa, owned by Mr. Henry Niccol, the proprietor of one of the first shipbuilding yards here. BEGINNING OF FIRM The youth was apprenticed in Mr. Niccol’s yards, and after serving for seven years he went into partnership with another ex-apprentice, John Sims. They were gradually to build up the firm of Sims and Brown, known all through Pacific waters. Their first yard was near Point Britomart, at the end of Princes Street. At one tin# the firm had one yard at Devonport and another near the foot of Hobson Street. Among the vessels built by the firm were the Noko, a pioneer in the Auck-land-G-isborne trade, the steamer Gemini, and other boats of Captain Jeremiah Casey’s coastal fleet, and about 13 sailers, schooners, barques and barquentines, for the island trading firm of Donald and Edenborough. The Sovereign and the Lady Wynyard both won schooner races at Anniversary Day regattas, a high honour in those days. An active interest in public affairs was taken by Mr. Brown. He went to Devonport in 1863 and was a member of the Devonport Highway Board for 15 years, and a member of the first Borough Council until 1894. He represented Devonport on the Auckland Harbour Board and was president of the Master Shipbuilders’ Federation for many years. Mr. Brown is survived by a widow, three sons, Messrs. Walter. Frederick and Harold Brown, of Auckland, and four daughters—Mrs. T. Farquharson, Mrs. (Captain) Richards, and Mrs. E. Pike, of Auckland, and Mrs. (Captain) Hardy, of Dunedin. There are 23 grandchildren and 13 great-grand-children.