WELLINGTON POST OFFICE

Grey River Argus, 25 July 1913, Page 6

WELLINGTON POST OFFICE

We have to acknowledge receipt of

a neat brochure in pamphlet form giving a historical account of the buildings in which the work of the Post-office has been carried on in Wellington. It is artistically illustrated, so graphically in fact that it is only necessary to glance at the pictures of the. different stages that the Post Office has passed through to form an approximate, idea of the progress of the country and the rapid rate at wheh it emerged from the toitoi stage in 1840 to the palatial building of 1912, which is a rather imposing piece of architecture for the pub-

lie office of a country so recently reclaimed from a state of nature. The Post-office of IS4O is a squat little one-storey shanty-, showing two windows and a door, * with apparently walls of "wattle and daub" and a thatched roof. .The building of 1843

was more pretentious. It was a small affair of two storeys with three dormer windows and three front windows on the ground floor. In 1855 it was a little more modern, but yet a deaidedly modest affair. lin the late

"fifties" Wellington t had some pretentions to being called a town. It had a wharf with a fair show, of shipping quite close to the Post.office on the original site, and which is still devoted to the necessities of the Postal Department. It also served as a courthouse and an occasional place of worship. Subsequently the 'tyro were separated. A rather fine building did duty from 1868 to 1881, from the roof of which a time ball, was raised every day at noon. But the postal business of Wellington expanded at such a rate that an imposing and beautiful building was erected m 1884. 'Admiral as that building was in every respect, it was 1 found necessary : n t 9 t2 to erect a still more pretentious and commodious building for the postal and telegraph work at Wellington. Facing "the title-page of the pamphlet is a strikingly Rood likeness of the Hon. R. Heaton Rhodes, Post-master-General and Minister of Telepraphs. The history was printed at the Government printiaig office.