Robert Laidlaw

Robert Alexander Crookston Laidlaw CBE (8 September 1885 – 12 March 1971) was a New Zealand business man who founded the Farmers Trading Company, one of the largest department store chains in New Zealand. He was also a Christian writer and philanthropist and a well-known lay preacher in the Open Brethren movement.

Laidlaw was born in Scotland, but his parents emigrated to Dunedin, New Zealand when he was a young boy. He later studied at Otago Boys' High School. In Auckland he founded Laidlaw Leeds, a Sears-type mail order catalogue for rural customers. This later merged with older The Farmers Union Trading Company to become what is now Farmers Trading Company Ltd, the last remaining nationwide chain of department stores in the country.

One of Laidlaw's best-known quotes is about the practice of tithing:

He wrote the short book 'The Reason Why', which has over 50 million copies in print.

In 2008, the Bible College of New Zealand renamed itself Laidlaw College in recognition of his role as one of the College's founders, and because of "his significant influence in both society and church".

In 1935, Laidlaw was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal. In the 1955 New Year Honours he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for social welfare and philanthropic services.

Laidlaw was a brother-in-law to Harry Ironside, who was Pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago from 1930 to 1948.

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