Alfred Brake (1858-1945)

Alfred Brake set up the Manutahi (Lepperton) Cheese Factory in 1882, bringing the cheese-making skills learnt in his home province of Canterbury to Taranaki. For Brake this was the beginning of a lifetime of inventing and innovation.

Brake was born at Catcott, Somerset on 11 September 1858. His family emigrated to New Zealand in 1864, settling at Tai Tapu in Canterbury. Alfred arrived in Taranaki in 1880 and bought a property in New Plymouth with Joseph Morshead. The two men planned to develop a nursery, however Brake soon turned his attention and skills to the dairy industry.

He married Agnes Tanner, a Tai Tapu local, in Christchurch in June 1882. The couple returned to Taranaki where their first two children were born. However, their third child, Alfred Henry, was born back in Tai Tapu in 1887 and for whatever reason Agnes and the children never returned to Taranaki. Brake remained largely estranged from his family for the remainder of his life.

Brake was to become best known as an organ builder. His first organ, built with W. Anderson, was exhibited at the Wellington Industrial Exhibition in November 1896, but only two Brake organs now survive in New Zealand, one in Hawera's Wesley Methodist Church.

In the early 1900s Brake toured Europe with his design for a soda syphon, seeking the sale and licensing of his patents. This was just one of a multitude of inventions he would develop during his lifetime. From the early 1930s until his death on 24 November 1945 he boarded with a family at their private hotel in Gill Street, New Plymouth. Alfred Brake is buried at Te Hēnui cemetery.

Documents

Early Taranaki link: death of Mr A. Brake Taranaki Herald 26 November 1945

Death of founder of early cheese factory occurs Taranaki Daily News 27 November 1945