Alexander Wylie (1819-1876)
Alexander Wylie (1819-1876)
1876 Obituary [1]
We regret to record the death on the 3rd inst., at Yokohama, Japan, of Mr. Alexander Wylie.
Mr. Wylie served his apprenticeship with Messrs. Murdoch, Aitken, and Co., engineers, Glasgow, whose business is still carried on by Messrs. Rait and Lindsay, and he was afterwards in the service of Messrs. Caird and Co., marine engineers, Greenock.
From their works he was engaged, about the year 1842, by the Royal Mail Steamship Company, in whose service be remained for the long period of 23 Years, during the last sixteen of which he occupied the position of chief engineer, while be held an extra first-class certificate as a marine engineer from the Board of Trade.
In 1865 he accepted the appointment of dock-master to the St. Thomas Floating Dock Company, whose dock unfortunately sank in 1867, and afterwards be commenced business as consulting engineer and iron merchant in Yokohama, where he died suddenly on the third day of this month, as advised to London by telegraph.
We have no doubt he was held in the same esteem in Japan as he was in Southampton and the West Indies, as a kind, warm-hearted man, and one of the few remaining of the band of first-class mechanics who in the earlier days of steam navigation, when the Royal Mail Company, the Cunard Line, and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company were in their earliest stages of existence, did good service in establishing those grand fleets, which have done so much in promoting the prosperity of Great Britain.
Mr. Wylie was 57 years of age when he died, and only survived the loss of his wife, to whom be was much attached, about nine weeks.