Mr. Francis D. S. Neave, B.A., J.P., Chairman of Directors of Ward and Company, Limited, was born in Essex in 1842. He was educated at Eton, and took his degree at Oxford in 1863. Coming to Lyttelton in the following year in the ship “Devonshire,” Mr. Neave purchased a run in the Rakaia district, which he curried on for twenty years, and became a resident in Riccarton in 1886. He has also acquired a freehold station property in Marlborough. Mr. Neave has taken considerable interest in educational matters. He is a Fellow of Christ's College, and for many years has been a Governor of Canterbury College and of the Lincoln Agricultural College. In mercantile matters he is a director of the Permanent Building and Investment Society, and chairman of the New Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Society, and of the New Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Insurance Company. He is also a member of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association.