BRANDER, JOHN (1835-1926)

BRANDER, JOHN, dry-goods merchant; b. Newcastle, 13 Oct 1835, s/o John Brander and Jane Watt; m. 1889, Rachel Gordon, d/o Robert Gordon and Mary MacDougall, of Chatham; d. Newcastle, 13 Apr 1926.

John Brander's father was a native of Speymouth parish, Morayshire, Scotland, and his mother immigrated with her parents from Aberdeenshire. He received his elementary education in Newcastle and studied at the Newcastle Grammar School under John H. Sivewright, Robert Falconer, and John Hardie. In 1861 he opened a dry-goods store in Newcastle which he "operated with honesty and integrity" for the next sixty-three years. He was a lifelong member of the Presbyterian church.

Brander was nearly fifty-four years old when he was married, and his wife, Rachel Gordon, was twenty-five years his junior. They had one son, John Robert Gordon Brander (b. 1897), who took over the family business in 1924 and later served a term as mayor of Newcastle (1937-39).