Shipping Manager To Retire

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31330, 29 March 1967, Page 6

Shipping Manager To Retire

Mr H. L. Herdman, of Lyttelton, who has completed nearly 28 years with Holm and Company, as manager of the company’s Christchurch and Lyttelton branches, will retire on Friday. Bom in Wellington in 1901, Mr Herdman came to Lyttelton from Cross Creek in the Wairarapa in 1913. Mr Herdman began work with the New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative Association of Canterbury where he stayed for nine years, mostly in the shipping department at Lyttelton. In early 1927 Mr Herdman joined the firm of W. W. Toy and Company in Lyttelton; Twelve years later, in 1939, Mr Herdman started in business on his own account, with the agency for the Tees, a small steamer in the Chathams trade. Mr Herdman -recalled that during his agency the Tees, which also had passenger accommodation, carried an average of 15,000 sheep annually from the Chathams to the mainland, and from March, 1937, to March, 1938, shipped 21,395 sheep. The trade had gradually dwindled, Mr Herdman said, and today the larger Holmbum brought over about 12,000 sheep annually. Late in 1939 the Tees was purchased by Southern Traders, Ltd., from the Westland Shipping Company, and it was in this year that Mr Herdman, as agent for the vessel, began his long association with Holm and Company. The Tees was renamed Holmwood, but she was sunk by the German raider Komet off the Chathams on November 5, the following year. During the following years Mr Herdman’s association with Holm and Company grew closer, and in 1949 he accepted the position he still holds.

Mr Herdman is a charter

member of the Christchurch Lions. He is a member of the Japan Society and a director of the British Sailors’ Society at Lyttelton. Mr Herdman in his younger days had a dance band in Lyttelton, and has been for many years in great demand as a pianist at port functions. Mr Herdman’s association with Holm and Company will not end on Friday, for he has been appointed a director of the company. Mr R. E. Muxlow will become Lyttelton branch manager, and Mr C. M. Hyde, now manager of the company’s Christchurch travel office, will become Christchurch branch manager. Mr Herdman will be bidden farewell at Lyttelton by his shipping and business associates, and in Christchurch by executive members of the New Zealand Port Employers’ Association. There will also be a private function in Christchurch attended by members of Holm and Company’s staff from the Christchurch, Lyttelton and other branches.