June 1, 1917.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



531- 



The Obituary Record. 



A PROMINENT PLANTATION ADVOCATE, 



SIR ALEXANDER SHARP BETHUXE, who died in Eng- 

 land recently, was a pioneer of the rubber planting industry 

 j in Ceylon. Starting in the tea planting business at the early 

 age of 2(1 years, he was connected with some of the large tea plan- 



tations and was 



prominent as a plan- 

 ter from 1880 until 

 about the first of 

 the present cen- 

 tury, wlien he left 

 Ceylon to become a 

 partner with Messrs. 

 Charles Hope & Co., 

 of L o n d o n. He 

 i d e n tified himself 

 with a large number 

 of planting enter- 

 prises and when 



later. In 1905 he formed tlie Consumers' Rubber Co. to manu- 

 facture insulated wire. Financial troubles overtook this concern 

 in 1911. In 1914 he organized the Narragansett Rubber Co., 

 which is in successful operation, manufacturing rubber footwear 

 and tennis shoes, and of which he was president and treasurer 

 at the time of his death. As an inventor he secured a patent for 

 an ingenious and practical buckle for overshoes. 



Mr. McCarty was described by his friends as a "rough dia- 

 mond." Tliat is, his education did not go far beyond that of 

 rubber manufacture, which he knew from the wash-room up. 

 He was warm-hearted, enthusiastic, a great worker, and a loyal, 

 dependable friend. His wife died several years, ago, but he is 

 survived by two daughters and nine grandchildren, a brother and 

 two sisters. 



Sir Ale.\.\xder Sh.\rp Bethune 



rubber became prominent he became pro- 

 moter for several leading planting com- 

 panies. He was a member of the Rubber 

 Growers' Association and, for a period, its 

 chairman, in which capacity he was largely 

 instrumental in the dispatch of chemists to 

 study scientific questions on the spot. He 

 was an earnest advocate for the standard- 

 ization of rubber. For many years he was 

 London correspondent for the "Times of 

 Ceylon" and a few years ago he took an 

 extended business trip which not only in- 

 cluded Ceylon but East Africa, investigating the extraction of 

 latex of the Funtiunia elastica and later writing interestingly of 

 his trip from the rubber man's standpoint, for the above men- 

 tioned journal. The story of his claim to the baronetcy is a 

 romantic one, Mr. Alexander Bethune, by authority of the Lyon 

 King of .Arms, becoming Sir Alexander Sharp Bethune, Bart., 

 in Decen:ber, 1916. .\t the iime of h!s death he was a director 

 in a large number of tea and rubber plantation companies. He 

 had a large circle of friends, in both England and Ceylon, who 

 mnurn his loss. 



A GRANDSON OF CHARLES GOODYEAR. 



Xelson Goodyear, grandson of Charles Goodyear, the discov- 

 erer of vulcanization, died at his home in New York City, after 

 a very short illness, aged 44 years. 



He was born in Brooklyn, New York, 

 but his early boyhood was spent in the 

 vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts, and his 

 education received at Hill School, Potts- 

 town. Pennsylvania. the Metropolitan 

 School of Fine -\rts, New York City, and 

 in Paris. Like his ancestors, he was an in- 

 ^., i^^^^^H vestigator and inventor. His father created 

 Tp^ ^^^^^^H the welt sewing machine, which revolution- 

 ized slioe manufacturing. Nelson Good- 



Terkence MlC.^rtv 



A LIFE LONG RUBBER SPECIALIST. 



Terrence McCarty, for nearly 5U years connected with the 

 rubber footwear industry, died in Providence, Rhode Island, on 

 May 4, following a surgical operation. 



He was born in Bristol, Rhode Island, March 19, 1856. His 

 education was limited principally to the evening schools of that 

 town, for he went to work in a cotton factory when eleven years 

 old. He entered the employ of the National India Rubber Co. as 

 errand boy in 1868, and worked his way up, becoming superin- 

 tendent in 1893. Always ambitious, he resigned that position two 

 years later, and, with Fred L. Smith, started the Byheld Rubber 

 Co., which was sold to the United States Rubber Co. some years 



year's studies were 

 in the l;nes of archi- 

 tecture, engineering 

 and the development 

 of a c e t yle n e for 

 lighting and me- 

 chanical work. His 

 automatic buoys are 

 used by the LInited 

 States Government, 

 among them a 13- Pciul Foumici 

 ton lighting and 

 whistling b u o y at 

 the Panama Canal. He perfected acetylene and oxygen welding 

 and cutting equipment, also apparatus for lighting and projec- 

 tion by acetylene. In architecture his most notable work is the 

 wonderful dome of Columbia University, the only self-sustain- 

 ing masonry dome in .America. His last work was on a trench 

 gun on original lines, a patent for which is now pending in 

 Washington. 



He traveled extensively, visiting Egypt, .\thens and Rome with 

 his uncle. Prof. W. H. Goodyear, Curator of Fine .Arts at 

 Brooklyn Institute. In Italy and France he studied architecture, 



Nelson GocnvE.^R 



