Obituaries Australia

We regret to have to announce the death, in his 77th year, of Mr. Frederick Gonnerman Dalgety, the founder of Dalgety and Company Limited.

Mr. Dalgety, whose name has so long been associated with the development and expansion of Australian trade, was born on the 3rd December, 1817, in Canada, where his father, Alexander Dalgety, then a lieutenant in the 89th regiment, was quartered, and died on the 21st March at his country seat, Locksley Hall, Hampshire, after a severe illness of six months.

At about his seventeenth year he came to Sydney in the Driad, Captain Heard, and entered the office of Montefiore and Company as a clerk, being afterwards in the employ of Mr. Breillat, both well-known mercantile houses in Sydney at that time. In 1843 his services were secured by Griffiths and Company to open their Melbourne business of Griffiths, Fanning and Company, but leaving them about the year 1846, he founded the firm of Dalgety, Borrodaile and Gore, of which he was the senior and managing partner, Mr. Gore taking charge of the Geelong establishment. On the admission of Mr. A. R. Cruikshank, the firm became Dalgety, Cruikshank and Company, and was subsequently changed to Dalgety, Blackwood and Company when Mr. James Blackwood joined the business and became the Melbourne resident in 1859, Mr. Dalgety having in 1854 established a head office in London and become the resident there. The firm for a long time carried on the business of general merchants and importers, and were the first to bring ships direct from China and Calcutta to these colonies. During the early fifties attention was turned to gold buying before the banks ventured on such business, and Mr. Dalgety cleared handsome profits on its shipment to London. He afterwards went extensively into the business of wool buying and brokering, and subsequently became largely interested in station properties, mostly New Zealand freeholds, to which colony he extended his business in 1864. Although well-known in Melbourne society and business circles during his residence there, he took no active part in politics, devoting all his energies to the development of the business which bears his name, and laying down the precept that all his partners should adopt the same policy. On taking up his residence in London in 1854, Mr. Dalgety continued the management there for a number of years, then gradually handed over the more active part to Mr. Frederick A. Du Croz, and latterly to Mr. Edmund T. Doxat; and although the business was converted into a limited liability company in June, 1884, he still continued to hold the reins as chairman, attending the meetings of the board in that capacity till failing health compelled him to retire to his country seat last October, and to hand over the post to the deputy-chairman, Hon. Pascoe C. Glyn. He married 12th December, 1855, Blanche Elizabeth Trosse, only daughter of Mr. John Allen, of Stokenham, county Devon, and niece of William Blundell Fortescue, of Fallapit, county Devon, and in 1887 was appointed J.P. and High Sheriff of his county. He leaves a large family of sons and daughters, and will be succeeded by his eldest son Frederick John, a lieutenant in the 15th Hussars; a younger son remains in the company's London office, and the family will continue to hold large pecuniary interests in the company.