Edward ‘Eddie’ Webb was a rare gem.
Not only was he a hugely successful businessman, a talented and competitive singer and outstanding Rotarian, but he was an indefatigable champion for his community, a faith-driven man for whom nothing was too much trouble.
Edward Webb – aka Eddie, Fast Eddie, Steady Eddie and more – was farewelled in Cambridge last week.
His death aged 96 came just five years after he stopped work and gave up riding his bike.
“Every community should have an ‘Edward Webb’, someone who is focused on serving the people to create a better, more functional environment,” son Bruce Webb said last week.
Eddie’s three children – Gordon, Bruce and Jan – all spoke highly of their dad at a packed Trinity St Paul’s Union Parish Church farewell. Many people whose lives he touched were there to help the town draw a line under one of its most popular sons.
Eddie was born and educated in Cambridge, to local butcher Harry Webb and his Scots-born wife Janet. The outbreak of WW2 saw the then 14-year-old sequestered into the butchery to replace staff who enlisted. It was an auspicious start as by aged 17 he had saved enough to buy a section of beachfront property at Waihi Beach, a spot that would later become the centre of many joyous family holidays.
It was also in his teens that he started singing seriously, building on a fortuitous arrival into a musical family by taking local lessons with Betty Wallace, then travelling to Auckland for weekly tuition. He went on to sing competitively and at numerous functions … music was something he enjoyed all his life.
Just out of his teens, at age 20, he met 17-year-old Betty Boyd, and the pair married in 1952. Their union and Eddie’s open love and admiration for Betty was central to his children’s eulogies. She was described by their dad as “his rock, his reason for happiness and success”.
EDWARD ‘EDDIE’ WEBB: 1927-2024
By his mid-20s, Eddie was running his father’s butchery business, building it into a group of three meat companies in Cambridge and partnerships with another six companies around the Waikato. He was a member of the South Auckland Meat Retailers’ Association for 12 years, four of them as chairman, and joined a group of eight of New Zealand’s larger meat retailers to share business ideas, nationally and internationally.
Eddie developed and built numerous commercial properties in Carter’s Flats and got involved in the building of a new timber factory in Cambridge for MLM. After the sale of his butchery business in 1979 he turned his skills to the timber business as a shareholder of MLM, and along with director Gavin Levesque they expanded and built a very successful timber processing and export business over a 40-year period.
Running parallel to that was the service he gave to others. He gave 46 years to Cambridge Rotary and was awarded the Paul Harris Award, the highest honour in Rotary International, acknowledging his outstanding contribution to the community.
He served on and led many committees, including for Cambridge Primary School, the Cambridge Electric Power Board, the Sheltered Workshop committee, and Friends of Resthaven committee. In 1965 he was elected to the then Cambridge Borough Council, becoming chair of the finance committee for three years and deputy mayor for another three.
Son Gordon Webb said his father’s life decisions were always made through his faith; it was the essence of who he was. Eddie spent 28 years on the board of the Trinity Church, and 25 years as a church elder.
His daughter Janette ‘Jan’, spoke of her father being ahead of his time with his belief in equality.
“He told me girls could do anything … he gave me that, and an adventurous spirit,” she smiled, “which was useful as we got up to all sorts of adventures together.”
Eddie Webb was a keen cyclist until the age of 91.
