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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

Mr. Edward Brooke-Smith

Mr. Edward Brooke-Smith, Manager of the Auckland Branch of the business of Messrs Baldwin and Rayward, was born in Birmingham, England. At an early age he went to Port Elizabeth, Cape was born in Birmingham, England. At an early age he went to Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, and entered the service of a firm of merchants, in which he eventually became a partner. During a residence of about twenty-seven years in the colony he took a keen interest in public affairs. He was for many years honorary treasurer of the Port Elizabeth Club, and a member of the committee of the Chamber of Commerce, also a director of five local companies, including the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage Railway Company, which initiated the first line of railway in the Eastern Province of the colony. The commercial depression which followed the retrocession of the Transvaal, depreciation in the value of his property, and a heavy loss in ostrich farming deprived him of the results of previous prosperous times, and in 1886 he came to New Zealand. For some time he was interested in mining operations on the West Coast of the South Island, and was the first to obtain special claims on the beaches for dredging purposes; the Hon. W. J. M. Laranch, Minister of Mines in 1887, granted him 200 acres on the Five Mile beach to assist him in initiating a new method of treating ground considered unworkable until that time. The Okarito Gold Dredging Company, Limited, was formed to exploit the venture, and Mr Brooke-Smith returned to Europe to procure the machinery. Owing to want of experience with the work, this plant was found to be far too small, and the company went into liquidation. While in England, Mr. Brooke-Smith promoted the New Zealand Beaches Limited Mining Company, and on its behalf took up a claim on the Three Mile Beach, which was worked by a powerful Welman hydraulic dredge. This plant proved perfectly satisfactory both as a dredge and as a gold saver, but, unhappily, the quantity of gold expected was not in the beach, and the enterprise was abandoned when almost within reach of success. Beach dredging thus received a check from which it has not yet (1900) recovered. After leaving the West Coast Mr. Brooke-Smith was for five years in business as a grain merchant in Oamaru, and in 1897, he visited America, Canada, England, and the Continent of Europe in connection with patent business. He returned to New Zealand about the end of 1898, when he settled in Auckland. Mr Brooke-Smith is married, and has one son and five daughters living.