William Webster (1849-1922)
William Webster (1849-1922)
1922 Obituary [1]
WILLIAM WEBSTER was born at Grange of Lour, Forfarshire, on 6th July 1849.
He served an apprenticeship at the Baltic Works, Arbroath, at the end of which he went to Messrs. Macorie and Co., Glasgow, sugar machinery manufacturers. Desiring to go abroad he, with a friend, became engineers on a small iron screw-steamer bound for Bangkok.
After many hardships and narrow escapes they arrived at Singapore. Mr. Webster then joined the Netherlands Indies Steam Navigation Co. as third engineer. In less than three years he became Chief Engineer, and sailed from Singapore and Dutch ports for about six years.
He returned to Scotland in 1876, but went back to the East in 1878, and joined the Kalima Engineering Works at Soerabaya, subsequently going to a sugar estate in Java.
He next became engineer to Messrs. Drossers and Co., Batavia, importers of sugar and rice milling machinery. After remaining with them for several years he was sent to look after the firm's interests at the Amsterdam Exhibition of 1883.
On the termination of the latter he went to Singapore, taking up positions with various firms.
After a severe attack of typhoid fever in 1902 he went back to Scotland intending to settle there, but the fascination of the East attracted him again, and he returned to Singapore, where he practised as a consulting engineer until his death on 1st August 1922, at the age of seventy-three.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1887.