Woman Has Been Arrowtown’s Town Clerk For Thirty Years

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27912, 8 March 1956, Page 2

Woman Has Been Arrowtown’s Town Clerk For Thirty Years

“The Press” Special Service

DUNEDIN, March 7. On June 1, Mrs Ivy B. Ritchie will complete 31 years as Town Clerk of Arrowtown, a record which is equalled by few. if any other, women in the Dominion. Before her marriage, she was a teacher for the Otago Education Board. She had been in Arrowtown 18 months when the positions of dayman and Town Clerk became vacant.

Her husband was the only applicant for the dayman’s job and received the appointment at the same wages a month as the dayman now gets in a week.

There were eight applications for the office of Town Clerk, and when asked whether she would accept the appointment. Mrs Ritchie said she would “give it a go.” That was 30 years ago when the Town Clerk’s salary in this small borough was £3O a year. The population of the borough has changed little. The last census gave it as 200. and the one before that placed it at 201.

But Arrowtown is rapidly growing in popularity as a holiday resort, and during the last 10 years the motor camp has been developed considerably with what revenue has been available. Many who originally came to the borough as holiday campers have since built cribs or holiday houses. Arrowtown, in relation to the size of the borough, has probably the longest stretch of main highway to maintain in Otago—three miles and a-quarter. Evidence of this is afforded by the fact that the Minister of Works made a grant some time ago of £BOOO for the tar sealing of the roads, the

rates of the borough being insufficient to maintain the highway. During Mrs Ritchie’s term as Town Clerk, Arrowtown has had six Mayors —Messrs L. Adams, J. Shaw, W. Milne. W. H. James, E. Thompson and W. J. Shaw. The present Mayor, Mr Shaw, oresides over a council of seven members. meeting monthly in the Borough Chambers, which according to the oldest identity, were built for use as a ginger beer factory. The site of the first council chambers is unknown. The present premises consist of two rooms—a library and the council chamber—but they are sadly out of date. The Town Clerk spends one dav a week at the office to attend to the requirements of the general public, but Mrs Ritchie says that just as many members of the public come to her home to transact their business as go to the council chambers. The volunteer fire brigade is under the jurisdiction of the urban fire authority, and as this is the borough council, Mrs Ritchie is its secretary. Among other positions held by Mrs Ritchie are those of secretary of the Lake County Agricultural and Pastoral Society and secretary of the Arrowtown School Committee. The latter office she has filled for 25 years. The present roll of the school is about 70. and the rooms were so crowded that four years ago. Arrowtown was seventh on the list for a new . school. “Now, however,” Mrs Ritchie says, “we are not on the list at all, although the foundations were supposed to be laid in 1955.”

For many years, the school was without a committee, and she and the late Mr George Hansen acted as commissioners.