LONG SERVICE ENDS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 294, 7 September 1932, Page 5

LONG SERVICE ENDS

Mr. H. L. Cummings Retires TELEGRAPH ENGINEER Over 37 years’ service has been completed by Mr. H. L. Cummings, A.M.1.E.E., who has retired from the position of Superintending Engineer, General Post Office. He devoted much of his service to the standardisation of engineering methods, and he was connected with several important works while with the department. Joining the Post and Telegraph Department in 1895, Mr. Cummings was transferred to the professional engineering branch in 1908. After occupying several positions, he was appointed District Telegraph Engineer, Wellington, in 1918, Inspecting Engineer, General Post Office, in 1926, and Superintending Engineer some months before his retirement.

Constructional methods adopted by the department have occupied much of Mr. Cummings’s attention, and in 1912 he was responsible for the layout of the underground cable distribution system of the Wellington' telephone exchange and the reticulation of subscribers’ circuits on lines which were subsequently adopted throughout New Zealand. He also, worked on the establishment of the Eastern Extension Company’s cable at Titahi Bay which was disconnected recently. . Mr. Cummings took an active part in early radio developments. In 1912 he was sent to Fiji to take over, on behalf of the Fijian Government, the radie station at Suva, where first radio station to be. erected by the Marconi Company in Fiji was set up. At that time he also reported on the establishment of stations in other islands of the group. Under his direction the Wellington telephone service was converted to a fully automatic system, and many improvements were made which resulted in the more efficient working of the exchange and the toll system. The number of subscribers on the Wellington exchange has quadrupled since Mr. Cummings was first associated with it.