THE FIRST TELEPHONE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20087, 2 May 1927, Page 3

THE FIRST TELEPHONE IN NEW ZEALAND.

TO THE EDITOtt. SIE, —I have read with interest what "S.N.M.” has to say in reply to my letter in your issue of April 20, but I cannot see that he has thrown any further light on the subject or made good the claim that the first telephone used in Now Zealand for practical purposes was installed in Dunedin. I gave ns nearly; as possible the time that a telephone was installed and used for commercial purposes at Teviot station. This telephone was connected with the Telegraph Office at Roxburgh, the distance between the two stations being approximately seven miles. The vital point was that a telephone was installed at Teviot station by my father, Mr Thomas Coop, either late in the year 1878 or early in 1870, and I had always understood that this was tha first telephone not only in New Zealand, but in the world, that had been put to practical use, and I asked any reader who knew of ono having been in use at an earlier date to bo so kind as to give the date or year of its installation. I am sorry that “S. N. M.” has adopted the tone ho has done in replying to my letter. I was asking for information only, and the remarks made by him with reference to Mr J. K. Logan, seem to me to be uncalled for. To the best of my knowledge and belief Mr Logan was a gentleman in every sense of the word. Whether Mr Muir was a donkey or only a mere man is beside the question. Would it not have been better if “S. N. M.” had omitted the camouflage and stated when Mr Muir’s telephone was installed, even though it was not used for commercial purposes. Apparently “S. N. M.” missed the gist of my argument, when I tried to show that a gentleman like Mr Cargill was a very likely man to grasp the opportunity of obtaining a telephone as he recognised the vast possibilities there were in the invention. My statement that the Teviot homestead was up-to-date, etc., was for the purpose of demonstrating that “S. N. M." was in error in stating that it was not likely that the first telephone would bo installed in what he termed the backblocks. I am pleased to find “S. N. M.” quoting the vast holdings of Northern Australia to refute rav claim that Teviot woolsheds were considered the largest in the Australasian colonies ut the time of which I was writing. While I have never visited that part of the world, let me inform “S. N. M.” that an uncle of mine, Henry Coop, owned a vast tract of that country (430 miles), bought from Sir W. J. Clarke and when this uncle was on a visit to our home at Roxburgh, as a man with considerable experience in this line, he considered the Teviot woolsheds to bo the largest in the colonics. I would only qualify this claim by saying that I alluded to one-storey buildings only. The stono walls of these sheds are still standing. It may also bo interesting to know that the arched roof of these sheds was originally built for somo large railway station in Melbourne, but owing to some faulty work either in design or otherwise the roof was not. accepted, and the contractors sold it to Mr Cargill, who shipped it to New Zealand and carted it on to Teviot station. When erected it had holding capacity under one roof for 7000 sheep. “S. N. M.” surprises me in asking for names of somo gentlemen connected with the telegraph service so that ho might gauge this qualification to say whether the Teviot. station telephone was the first erected and used for commercial purposes or not . ’I do not see why Mr Muir should lx. considered specially capable of gauging this qualification, any more than why “S. N. M.” said that Teviot station was in the backblocks and that therefore there was good and sufficient reason for holding that the first telephone was not installed there. As stated in my previous letter, I am a daughter of the "late Thomas Coop, who erected the telephone at Teviot station.— I nrn, etc., S. J. SheeHT. Miller's Flat, April 29