St. Moritz, Feb. 4.
Sir Henri Deterding, the Netherlands "Oil King," died here today at the age of 72.
The "Oil King" was called upon to earn his own living at a comparatively early age, his father, a master mariner, dying when the son was only six years old. He won his start in life by passing the final examination in a business course at the age of sixteen, which gained him the distinct tion of becoming the youngest employee in the famous Twentsche Bank, at Amsterdam.
For six years he remained in the bank and then, feeling his chances of promotion were slight, he decided to go out to the Netherlands East Indies. He accordingly secured a position with the Netherlands Trading Society, and went out east, Sir Henri used afterwards to say that it was his first job out in the Indies which laid the foundations of his successful qualities. He was set to unravel the almost hopelessly complicated books of the society's branch at Deli, where the book-keeping had been decidedly dubious for more than a year.
Training For Future To his success in this Herculean task when it looked almost impossible, Sir Henri owed later his uncanny skill in unravelling figures, and his habit of reducing every situation to its simplest terms.
Sir Henri spent altogether eight years in the employ of the Netherlands Trading Society, first at Medan, and later at Penang. Then, in 1896, he offered his services to the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, and after only one year's service he became Assistant Managing Director. In 1901 he became Managing-Director, and a year later he was General. Manager of the whole world concern.
Sir Henri later organized the federation of Netherlands and English oil interests, and thus had i his employ some. 40,000 people, including. more than 6,000 in England.
In 1920 he was knighted for his services in the promoting of industrial interests. In 1928 he received the honorary degree of doctor of Technical Sciences at Delft University. In 1933 Sir Henri caused great alarm in Netherlands financial circles by declaring himself in favour of Holland's abandonment of the gold standard.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.