Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....Searby, William January 17, 1872 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
J. Orr jessicanorr@gmail.com January 5, 2012, 3:29 pm

Source: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Ltd. Territory of Hawaii, 1925
Author: Edited by George F. Nellist

WILLIAM SEARBY, Engineer and Executive. Entering upon the stern business of 
life at the early age of 13, when most boys are concerned only with school 
books and juvenile athletics, William Searby for six years roamed the seven 
seas as a sailor, unusual but effective preparation for a later career as 
engineer, inventor and corporation executive.
  When 12 years old, Mr. Searby was sent on a sailing ship on the long journey 
from London to Melbourne, Australia, to join an uncle, who placed him with 
Connel, Hogarth & Co., a Melbourne firm of wholesale grocers and tea 
merchants. Six months later, however, the boy became so homesick that he 
shipped as an ordinary seaman on the ship “Loch Eck,” bound for England by way 
of Calcutta. The voyage required nine months and upon his arrival in London, 
Mr. Searby’s father immediately apprenticed him to the John Wilson Co., owners 
of the “Loch Eck.”
  During the next six years Mr. Searby became acquainted with practically 
every important port in the world. When he was 19, his apprenticeship served, 
his ship was in San Francisco and he wrote to his father and obtained his 
discharge, so that he might remain in California.
  Here began Mr. Searby’s career in connection with the sugar industry. Having 
studied marine engineering while at sea, he was employed by the Alameda Sugar 
Co. in Alameda, Cal., as an engineer. This was in 1890 and Mr. Searby remained 
with the company for seven years, then going to the Union Sugar Co. in Santa 
Barbara as foreman of manufacture.
  His experience with the California sugar companies fitted him to accept a 
position in 1900 as head sugar boiler for the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., 
at Spreckelsville, later Puunene, on the island of Maui. From 1907 to 1918 he 
was superintendent of manufacture and machinery and in the latter year he 
became consulting engineer for American Factors, Ltd. In 1920 he was made vice 
president, director and assistant manager, positions he still holds.
  During his years of plantation work, Mr. Searby made several invaluable 
contributions to the sugar industry. With W. G. Hall he was the joint inventor 
of the quadruple effect evaporator which improved the efficiency of 
evaporation in sugar production, and alone he invented the Searby shredder, 
the Searby leveler for the preparation of sugar cane for milling, and a 
process of diffusion for cane sugar factories.
  He was also in charge of the first demonstration given in Hawaii to prove 
that white sugar could be made by the use of small quantities of vegetable 
charcoal.
  Mr. Searby is a director of the Ahukini Terminal and Railway Co., the East 
Kauai Water Co., Kekaha Sugar Co., Koloa Sugar Co., Lihue Plantation Co., 
Waiahi Electric Co., Makee Sugar Co., Oahu Sugar Co., 
Waiahole Water Co., Olaa Sugar Co., Pioneer Mill Co., Lahaina Agricultural 
Co., Princeville Plantation Co., Waimea Sugar Co., Catton, Neill Engineering 
Co., and he is a vice president and director of Henry May & Co. and the 
Hawaiian Canneries Co.
  Memberships in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American 
Chemical Society and the Hawaiian Sugar Technologists’ Association are held by 
Mr. Searby. He is also a member of the Honolulu Ad Club, Neighborhood Tennis 
Club, Puunene Athletic Club, Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Club, Oahu Country 
Club, Bohemian Club, San Francisco; Masons, Iao Lodge of Perfection, Haleakala 
Chapter Rose Croix, Honolulu Consistory No. 1 and Aloha Temple, Mystic Shrine.
  Born in Bath, England, Jan. 17, 1872, Mr. Searby is the son of George and 
Elizabeth (Atkinson) Searby. In 1892 he married Cara Marinda Sawyer in San 
Francisco and they have one daughter, Margaret Lavinia Searby.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/bios/searby540bs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/hifiles/

File size: 4.4 Kb