William Esau Heard

(Photo and text from "Who's Who In Newport" 1920.)

Heard, William Esau was born at Northam, Devon, in 1835. He came to Newport in 1848, and has been associated with the shipping business of the port without a break for 71 years. He is the managing director of Messrs. Jones, Heard & Co. Ltd., a firm with which he first started as office boy in 1849, and which is now so very closely associated with the import and export trades of Newport as agents to the various Conference Lines of Steamers trading to and from Newport with various parts of the world. Mr. Heard, who is on the Commission of the Peace for the County of Monmouth, was president of the Newport Chamber of Commerce Incorporated in 1889, and has been six times a vice-president of this body. He was the first representative of the Chamber on the Newport Harbour Commission, and is to-day a member of that body. Mr. Heard is Consular Representative at Newport for Russia, Belgium, Uruguay and Peru, and was for 28 years Consular Agent for the United States of America (1879-1907). Mr. Louis De Coninck, chancellor to the Belgian Vice-consulate, Newport, informs us His Majesty the King of the Belgians has conferred upon Mr. Heard the Civic Cross of the First Class. This was immediately followed by the Croix Chevalier de l'ordre de Leopold, which is the greatest distinction within the power of the Belgian Government to confer. These were in recognition of his valuable services, rendered over a period of more than 35 years as vice-consul and for special war work. He is regarded as the doyen of the commercial community of the port. Office: 107 Dock Street. Tel. 3911—4 lines. Telegrams: "Heard". Residence: Winchester House, Stow Park. Tel. 2819.