Farmer’s Wife Among Glassers

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32324, 16 June 1970, Page 28

Farmer’s Wife Among Glassers

A farmer’s wife with a family of six children was among about 40 professional and owner wool classers from all parts of the country who were present when a conference for classers began in Christchurch yesterday under the auspices of the New Zealand Wool Handling Committee. The female member of the group was Mrs Arthur Wigley, whose husband farms an 820-acre property with more than 2000 sheep at Hook in South Canterbury. Mrs Wigley takes about a week off a year from household duties to do the classing in the woolshed on the property—she describes it as “a working holiday.” She has been classing now for about 16 years. Her family now ranges in age from seven to 19 years; when the children were younger she had to have someone helping her in the shed so that they could take over from her if necessary. Now she works full time in the shed. Brought up on a farm in the King Country, which is still in the hands of the family, she attended a two-year classing course at the Christchurch Technical College while studying for a master of arts degree in history at Canterbury College during World War 11. She attended the wool classing course with a friend who was also interested —Miss

Janet Morse, who is now Mrs Holm. The course ran one night a week and could be fitted in with her university studies. Some of the classers attending the conference this week are registered under the Wool Handling Committee's scheme for registration of classers. Mrs Wigley is not yet registered, but is interested in the scheme. She also attended a course at Lincoln College last year. In opening the conference the chairman of the Wool Handling Committee, Mr J. D. Fraser, said that the establishment of the scheme in 1968 had represented a revolution for classers and wool. Before that, he said that classers could belong to to the Massey Wool Association or the South Island Wool Association, but they had no national recognition or image as classers. While wool had had various forms of recognition in brokers’ bins and under growers’ brands, there had been no national control over it in the way that was now possible with the Kiwi stencil brand—the symbol which indicates that a bale has been classed by a registered classer—beginning to appear on wool bales. Highest Standards Noting that there were also schemes in South Africa and Australia, Mr Fraser told the classers he believed that the standards set for registration in New Zealand were the highest set anywhere; he said that the objectives and purposes of the scheme were best served by requiring a high standard of workmanship. Since the scheme started they had had to write to classers whose work did not come up to standard, said Mr Fraser.

He said that where the standards were not maintained registration would be withdrawn, and the major penalty in this would be that all wool brokers would be advised of this. It was hoped there would be no need for any de-registrations. The aim of the course is to bring classers up to date with the industry. It will include both lectures and practical woolhandling. The walls of the lecture room are decorated with wool pictures and posters; a display at the rear of the room includes wool in various stages of processing up to the finished product. Mr Fraser also drew the classers’ attention io a display of wool carpets, knitting wool and apparel set up in the store by Mr W. B. Ferigo, who recently won a New Zealand competition for window dressing. In the group in the accompanying photogrph, taken soon after the opening of the conference, are, from left, Messrs Dobier, Fraser, K. M. Collins, wool manager for Dalgety and New Zealand Loan in Christchurch, D. Menzies (Kurow), A. Orchiston (Gisborne) and K. Emslie (Kurow)—the latter three are all professional classers.