1915. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



i in- 1 



The Obituary Record. 



William M. [vins. 



WILLIAM M. IVINS. 



WILLIAM MILLS IVINS, formerlj president of the 

 General Rubber Co. but more widely known as a 

 brilliant member of the bar, and a conspicuous figure 

 in New York politics, died at his home, 145 West I iftj eighth 

 street, New York. Julj 23, from acute Bright's disease result 



ing from the ex- 

 haustion which Eol 

 lowed the long 

 strain o f t h e 

 Barnes libel suit 

 against < 'ol. koose- 

 velt, in which Mr. 

 I vins was the lead- 

 ing counsel for the 

 plain tin. 



Mr. Ivins was 

 born in Freehold, 

 New Jersey, in 1851, 

 but lived prac- 

 tically all his life in 

 I! r o k 1 y n . He 

 graduated from the 

 Adelphi Academy 

 in that city and 

 studied law at Col- 

 umbia Law School. 

 from which he took 

 In- degree in 1873. 

 Three years later. 

 when i nlj 25 years i In showed his mettle by leading 



-nil attack against the political "boss" of his home 

 city. Hi I at that time such remarkable skill in ex- 



posing municipal abuses that he was called upon many times 

 in later life to assist in effecting state and city government 

 refi ii 



In 1881 he became the private secretary of William R. 

 Grace, then Mayor of Xew York, and in this way formed an 

 .i--." iation which later led him into prominence in the rubber 

 field. When Mr. Grace was re-elected Mayor, in '84, he ap- 

 pointed Mr. Ivins City Chamberlain, a position which he held 

 for t ii- with marked distinction. In the meantime he 



become associated with Mr. Grace in various South 

 American matters, becoming in this way interested in the 

 rubber industry. So well known did he become in the south- 

 ern continent that in 1892, when Brazil and Argentina became 

 involved in a dispute ovfr boundary lines, Mr. Ivins was 

 asked bj the Brazilian government to represent its interests, 

 which he did with great success. When the Rubber Goods 

 Manufacturing Co. was formed, in 1899, he assisted actively 

 in it- organization and during its earlier years was one of its 

 directors. And when the General Rubber Co. was formed, in 

 1904. for the purpose oi establishing a wide commercial sys- 

 tem for supplying the United States Rubber Co. with its im- 

 ports rude rubber, he became president of the company 

 In November of that year he was one of the party taken by 

 Commodore Benedict on the steam yacht "Virginia" for a 

 three months' cruise up the Amazon as far as Manaos — under- 

 taken chii the purpose of studying the crude rubber 

 situation. 



In the fall of 1905 the Republicans of New York City made 

 Mr. Ivins their candidate for the mayoralty. It was a three- 

 cornered contest in which his two rivals were William R. 

 Hearst and George B. McClellan. While Mr. Ivins did not 

 succeed in winning the mayoralty, he succeeded in making 



that campaign one of the liveliest and most interesting munici- 

 pal campaigns on record. In Ma> of the foil,, wing year— 

 1906 — he resigned as president ol tin General Rubbei I o., 

 owing to pressure of his legal work and other interests, and 

 after thai time took no ii. part in the rubber industry, 

 although he planned to write an exhaustive work embra 

 the whole realm of rubber, a subject with which he had made 

 himseli widely familiar. The many demands on bis time, 

 hi iw i er, made it impossible for him to carry out this pn - 



It would be impossible in the brief space available on this 

 pagi to recount the commercial enterprises, official inves 

 tions and celebrated legal controversies in which Mr. Ivins 

 took part. The last notable law suit in which he was engaged, 

 referred to above — in which he re] Mr. Bat 



against < ol. Roosi veil —is too recent a matter of political 

 historj to need any extended reference. The tremendous 



volui ork which he did in connection with the 



and the greal enet that he threw into it. undoubtedly 

 brought on the general physical collapse which terminated 

 fatally. 



Mr. Kins was a man of extraordinary intellectuality, with a 

 great diversity of gifts, lie took a keen enjoyment in master- 

 ing languages, and spoke five or six with easy fluency. He was 

 much devoted, also, to the science of botany, and was an en- 

 thusiastic collector of objects of historic interest lie v. 

 man of marked individuality and left a notable record a- a 

 lawyer, orator, scholar and business administi 



E. H. LOCK. 



Dr. Robert Heath Lock, author of "Rubber and Rubber 

 Planting." editor of the "Tropical Agriculturist." and for- 

 merly assistant director of the Botanical Gardens. Ceylon, 

 died suddenly, June 26, at Eastbourne. England Dr. Lock 

 was 36 years of age. He was hom ai Eton College, where 

 his father, Rev. J. B. Lock, was assistant master, and wa- 

 educated at Cambridge University. In addition to his liter- 

 ary work he acted as curator of Cambridge University Herba- 

 rium for 3 years, and conducted for 4 years continuous ex- 

 periments in rubber tapping. Dr. Lock, in "Rubber and Rub- 

 ber Planting" — reviewed in these columns February, 1914 — 

 combined a treatise on the science of rubber planting with 

 general information in such a way as to make the book in- 

 teresting to the general reader as well as to the rubber ex- 

 pert. By his death tropicai agriculture is deprived of the 

 services of one specially fitted to advance its interest. 



JOHN N. WILLIAMS. 



John Newton Williams, connected for over 40 years with the 

 Boston Rubber Shoe Co., and the father of Elisha S. Williams, 

 president of the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Co., died from 

 neuralgia of the heart July 2 at his summer home in Falmouth, 

 Maine. Mr. Williams was born in Woodstock, Connecticut, 

 March 31, 1849. He was a nephew of Mrs. Elisha S. Converse, 

 and after finishing his course at the local school he joined the 

 forces of the Boston Rubber Shoe Co.. first being connected with 

 its store in Boston and being transferred a few years (at< 

 the factory at Maiden. There he had charge of the ship 

 department for nearly 35 years, retiring eight years ago. 



During his employment at the factory in Maiden he made his 

 home in that city, but soon after his retirement moved to Bi 

 line, Massachusetts. He was married in December. 1870. to 

 Mi-- Caroline Bickford, who survives him. Besides Elisha S. 

 Williams, there are three other surviving children. Frank C. 

 Williams of Kansas City. Mrs. William D. Locherty of Maiden 

 and Mrs. S. C. W. Simpson of Brookline. 





