Special Stamp For Telegraph Centenary

Press, Volume C, Issue 29674, 18 November 1961, Page 5

Special Stamp For Telegraph Centenary

The centenary of the first telegraph line in New Zealand, between Lyttelton and Christchurch, will be celebrated next year, and a special postage stamp will be issued to mark the occasion.

The line was opened on July 1, 1882. It ran from the old Lyttelton telegraph office on the site of the preaent offices of C. Ferrier and Company. Ltd., next to the post office in Norwich quay, to the old Christchurch telegraph office in Gloucester street, in the neighbourhood of Chancery lane. An office at Heathcote was opened soon afterwards. One of the main purposes of the Heathcote office was to provide a call system for a doctor in case of accident to men working on the construction of the rail tunnel. The doctor could—and several times did—ride over the bridle path in 40 minutes to attend to a casualty. The equipment for the line arrived from Britain in 1859. but was put into storage for many months. Eventually it was erected by the tunnel contractors. Two plaques in the metropolitan area commemorate the telegraph line. One is on Ferrier’s building at Lyttelton. marking the site of the telegraph office and the other on the dock-tower at Scarborough. The clock-tower plaque records the gift of the clock and tower by R. E. Green to the borough of Sumner to commemorate his father, Edmund Green, who supervised the installation of the line. The Post Office is anxious to obtain information about the type of equipment which was installed in the offices. Two fires in the departmental records department have destroyed much early information. but the department hopes that private persons may happen to have in their possession some parts of the

equipment or a .description of them. At the annual retired postal officers’ Christmas party, to be held on December 7, a feature will be made of the coming centenary and two of the old-time telegraphists will send each other messages in morse from either end of the Jellicoe Hall, in which the func. tion is being held. The operators will be Mr F. Dephoff and Mr B. Fahey, who have come back to the department in their retirement and still carry out daily duties as telegraphists in the Chief Post Office. The hall has been specially wired for the event. The messages will be relayed over a loudspeaker and an interpretation given.