Ashdown, William Ernest

ASHDOWN, William Ernest (1860–1936) was born at Liverpool, New South Wales, son of Albert John Ashdown, auctioneer, and Jane Fysh. Nothing is known of his training. By March 1888 he was working in Brisbane for the Sydney architects McCREDIE BROS when he attended a dinner to farewell Hugh CAMERON of the contractors John PETRIE & SON. He was probably supervising erection of offices for the Australasian Steam Navigation Co Ltd. His first wife Elizabeth Farrell died in Sydney in July 1888 and after completion of the AUSN Offices, he remained in Brisbane entering a short-lived partnership with Thomas STATHAM, as Thos Statham & Co contractors, which was dissolved in August 1890. By then Ashdown was back in Sydney listed as a draftsman and where he married Emma Krauss in 1896. By 1930, he was a builder living at Epping where he later died.