SHIPPING OFFICIAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21937, 22 October 1934, Page 11

SHIPPING OFFICIAL

lOCAL PASSENGER AGENT MR. E. H. WING RETIRING UNION COMPANY SERVICE After 43 years in the service of the Union Steam Ship Company, th'> greater part of which has been spentin Auckland, Mr. E. H. Wing, local passenger agent for the company, is to retire at the end of next month. Mr. Wing is to spend the next few weeks in making an instructional tour of the southern branches of the company, and will return to Auckland about the middle of next month. His place is to be taken by Mr. P. A. Chappoll, who is well known to Union Company passengers as purser on the Aorangi for the last eight years. Previously he was purser on the Niagara. Mr. Wing was born at Onchunga, but later went to the South Island and joined the staff of the Union Company in JDunedin. Four and a-half years later he was transferred to the Auckland office and served in the freight department for three years. He was then parttime assistant in the passenger department for about two years before ho was appointed head of the department at the Auckland branch, a position ho has held for over 30 years. W T hen Mr. Wing was first associated with the passenger work of the company, it had vessels running in the San Francisco service, across the Tasman, to the Islands and, in addition, a large coastal passenger trade, in which some of the ships serving were the Takapuna, Rotoiti, Flora, Te Anau, Monowai and Mokoia. At that time Mr. Wing was in charge of all passenger arrangements and had the assistance of only one parttime clerk. The passenger work has now grown to such an extent —even with coastal traffic almost a thing of the past —that lately he has had a staff of nine in his department. The Union Company's present passenger liners have all been launched during Mr! Wing's period of service, and he has witnessed marked changes in the passenger accommodation provided on vessels trading regularly to New Zealand.