SECRETARY FOR MARINE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 57, 1 December 1919, Page 6

SECRETARY FOR MARINE

ill?. GKO. ALLPORT'S BETIREMENT. Mr. George Allport, Secretary to the .Marino Dephrtment, and an official who has been held in tho highest esteem by all brunches of the service for a quarter of a century past, will retire from tho '-im-ernnienl service on superannuation at the end of the present mouth. Mr. Allport entered the Civil Service as a. cadet >n Wellington on January 1, 1875, being placed in the local' Customs Department. AJ'ler only a fortnight he was transferred Iα the head oflice of the Customs Department, of which, at that time, the Marine Department was a branch, both being directed by the then Controller of Customs, Mr. 'William Seed. In 1877 the Shipping and .Seamen's Act was passed, and after being approved by the Imperial authorities, tho Marine office became n separate Department, with Captain Hubert Johnson (then Naval Adviser to the Government), oflicer-in« chdige, and later in the same vear (1878) secretary. In ISSO Mr. Seed,'still Controller of Customs, was appointed Secretary of Marine. From that timo until December, 1901, Hie Secretary for Customs was aulonmtically Secretary for Marine, but in that month, Mr. Allport, who had steadily and conscientiously worked his way up through tho grades, was appointed Acting-Secretary for Marine, and on December 14, 1903, was appointed Secretary, a position he has (illwl with credit to himself and tho Government.

Mr. Allport has always taken a vory lively interest in tho lot of his fellowCivil_ servants, and as'president of the Public Service Association '(from which position ho Ims just retired) has done a very great deal of useful work in raising the status and improving the conditions of tho service. As a bowler, Mr. Allport is well and popularly i&own throughout the Dominion, and -for some years represented tho Lower Hutt Club on the Wellington Bowling Centre. Early in the new year Mr. and Mrs. Allport will leavo for Sydney, and in March next will leavo there for England by the Orontes, subsequently returning to settle at tho Hutt.