LONG SHIPPING CAREER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 8

LONG SHIPPING CAREER.

UNION COMPANY OFFICIAL

MR W. A. KENNEDY TO RETIRE

FORMER AUCKLAND SERVICE.

[BX TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

WELLINGTON, Friday

"I have just arranged for my commission to expire on March 31, on which data I will haul down my flag," said Mr. W. A. r Kennedy, manager at Wellington for the Union Steam Ship Company, to day. Mr. Kennedy is the senior member of the staff of the company, having joined it in January, 1877. He has completed 53 years of service and has thus been closely associated with the growth of the company from its small beginning to its present magnitude. Incidentally, jjinoa 1882, he has also been associated with the growth of the Wellington Harbour, Board, which recently celebrated its jubilee.

During this period, after passing through various branches of the company s service, Mr. Kennedy was successively in charge of its Blenheim, New Plymouth, Napier, Invercargill and Auckland branch offices. He also occupied for some time the position of private secretary to fcSr James Mills, then managing director of the company. When Sir James Mill 3 represented Port Chalmers in Parliament, in 1891, the expansion of the company's operations necessitated the formation of a general traffic manager's department at the head office and Mr. Kennedy was the first to be appointed to the position. Mr. Kennedy held this position, until the end of 1895, when he was transferred to the Wellington branch as manager, a position which he has retained continuously for over 34 years, l'or many yeai'3 he was actively associated with industrial conciliation and Arbitration Court proceedings in connection with seamen and waterside workers. He holds the following positions related thereto: —President of the Wellington Waterside Employers' Union, chairman of the New Zealand Waterside Employers' Association, chairman of the Wellington Waterside Employers' Association and member of the National Disputes Committee, which deal 3 with all waterside workers' disputes throughout New Zealand. Mr. Kennedy has been a director of the Wellington Patent Slip Company since 1908, when the shares in that company were acquired by the Union Company, and for the past 16 years has represented in Wellington the Shipwreck Relief Society of New Zealand, the headquarters of which are in Dunedin, He has also been one of the trustees o£ the Union Steam Ship Company's Superannuation Association since its inauguration in 1905*