Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Taranaki, Hawke's Bay & Wellington Provincial Districts]

Councillor George William Browne

Councillor George William Browne has been a member of the New Plymouth Borough Council since the year 1902. He was born in Hastings, Sussex, England, in 1851, and was carried, as an infant, to the great Exhibition of London. Mr. Browne
Collis photo.Councillor G. W. Browne.

Collis photo.
Councillor G. W. Browne.

was educated at St. Martins-in-the-Fields, London, and was for eleven years of his early life in France. In 1868, he came to New Zealand, and landed in Wellington, where he served as a volunteer under Colonel Reader, rose to the rank of sergeant, and had charge of a magazine at the Lower Hutt under Captain Braithwaite. Four years later he was employed by the Messrs Brogden, and, as bridge foreman erected various bridges between New Plymouth and Waitara. He also erected the Waitara wharf. Mr. Browne subsequently established himself in business as a builder and contractor, and has erected many buildings between Auckland and Wellington, including the New Plymouth Convent, Mr. Ward's drapery shop, the Fitzroy Bacon Factory, Abbott's Building, Devon Street, and the New Plymouth Jockey Club's Grand Stand. Mr. Browne was for eighteen years a member of the local Horticultural Society, and has been associated with many movements in the district. In the Queen's Jubilee year (1887) he took an active part in promoting the erection of a drinking fountain in the Recreation Grounds, and was a member of the original committee that laid out the athletic part of the same grounds, an undertaking involving the reclamation of a swamp. In 1905–6 he was chairman of the Western Park committee, which successfully laid out the park. Mr. Browne served as chairman of the Carrington Road branch of the Farmers' Union, and is (1906) a member of the Provincial Executive. He married a daughter of the late Mr. James Butterworth, of New Plymouth, in 1892, and has one son and three daughters.