OBITUARY MR R. S. WHEELER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31770, 29 August 1968, Page 9

OBITUARY MR R. S. WHEELER

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, Aug. 28.

Mr Ralph Stanley Wheeler died at Timaru this week at the age of 80. A former Timaru oorough councillor, Post Office telegraph - branch supervisor, Workers’ Educational Association student. Army officer, and raconteur, Mr Wheeler •was, above all, an authority on current affairs—one who studied economics, finance, and other social sciences and international topics, and contributed regularly to the correspondence columns of “The Press.”

He was born at Wellington and educated at the Petone and Thorndon Schools, Wellington Technical School, and the Auckland Technical College.

Mr Wheeler, who began his long connection with the Post Office at Petone in 1904, was intensely proud of his ability as a Morse-key operator, having been associated with radio and telegraph work for almost the whole of his career in the department. In 1914 Mr Wheeler was appointed officer-in-charge of the Chatham Islands radio station.

When war was declared in 1914, Mr Wheeler, wno had been a territorial in the Hutt Valley Rifles, left the Chathams to enlist in the Army. He served in France with the Canterbury Regiment, and on

his return home in 1919 was commissioned in the central depot of the New Zealand Corps of Signals. In World War II Mr Wheeler joined the 7th Canterbury Battalion in 1942 as a signals officer with the rank of lieutenant and served until June, 1943, when he was discharged with the rank of captain. Having rejoined the Post Office in 1919, after World War I service, Mr Wheeler served in the telegraph branch at Wellington and later was supervisor at Wanganui, Auckland, and Greymouth before transferring to Timaru as senior supervisor in 1932.

He retired in 1944, a year after his appointment as South Canterbury’s warsavings organiser. As a borough councillor — Mr Wheeler was elected to the Timaru Borough Council in May, 1944, it being 1948 before Timaru attained city status—he served as chairman of the library committee, a member of the works and reserves committees, and as a council representative on the Timaru Fire Board. Mr Wheeler is survived by a son.

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