George Fraser (New Zealand engineer)

George Fraser, was born at Fort Dee, or Footdee, in Aberdeen, on 25 June, or possibly 28 June 1832, the son of Rachel Gray and her husband, George Fraser, an iron moulder at Simpson's Engineering Works. He went to a local school, until apprenticed, aged 14, to local engineers and shipbuilders, Hall, Catto, Thompson & Co. His next job was draughtsman at Smith and Tulloch, engineers of Greenock, then briefly, aged 20, as manager of the Caulton Foundry in Glasgow. He then spent seven years as an apprentice at Simpson's in the drawing office and learning machining, fitting and pattern making. On 8 October 1854, near Glasgow, he married Christina Davidson, daughter of the manager at Simpson's. Then he was a pattern-maker at St. Rollox Foundry, a draughtsman with Clydebank Foundry and manager of the Carlton Foundry of Drummond and Co.

His next job, for Campbellfield engineers Hopkins and Wilson, was to help erect and manage 4 flax mills at Matakana in New Zealand. After a voyage of 145 days, he and the machinery arrived in Auckland on 28, or 30 April 1855 on the barque Cornubia. However, the mill rendered the fibre useless, so George returned to Auckland in 1856 to build a large flour mill in Queen Street for Thornton, Smith and Firth.

In 1861 George bought a foundry in Parnell and in 1864 moved it further up Grafton Gully as the Phoenix Foundry, initially as Fraser and Tinne and later as George Fraser & Sons Ltd.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} George's restoration of the wrecked ship Triumph was well publicised and awarded around 1884.^[5]

In 1871 Fraser and Tinne acquired a flax mill at Kaihu, which, in 1875, they converted to produce paper and cardboard from flax. The venture was financed from Liverpool by setting up the New Zealand Fibre Company. These assets seem to have been sold in 1885.^[7]