STORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 4

STORY OF DEVELOPMENT

The Post Office in Otago A CENTURY OF PROGRESS Xhe New Zealand of the first years of main European settlement was a land of mountainous peaks, tangled bush and treacherous rivers. By reason of the nature of the land, settlement was sparse and scattered. The pioneer knew the stern hardships imposed by natural barriers and the pimeer had isolated himself across thousands of miles of ocean. It was among these first settlers that the Post Office in New Zealand developed.

THE story of the New Zealand posts is one of patience and persistence against great natural difficulties; a story of long journeys made over rough, new-cut tracks; a story of development as the amenities of ordered settlement, to which the post itself contributed, established their way. But more, it is a story of a people who, severed from the immediate bonds of kinship, from the associations of their homeland, so’ught by their own demands and among themselves to ensure that communication with the land which they left was regular. The post was to them a paramount necessity, and throughout, till the beginning of the present century, a British mail was something to be treated with expedition and respect. Delay in its delivery roused scathing criticism. To miss a first onward shipment from a port of receipt to other parts of the colony was a grave breach of duty. First Post Offices v In 1848 the first Scottish emigrants landed at Port Chalmers, and at the port a post office was set up almost immediately under the charge of a M'r McCarthy. In Dunedin itself the first office was opened in the same year in the store of Mr Archibald Anderson. This store was situated at the corner of Princes and Rattray streets. A return of business prepared in 1856 by Mr Charles Logie, then postmaster, shows that in the first year 758 letters and 233 newspapers were posted, while 426 letters and 667 newspapers were received. By 1854, 6796 letters and 5104 newspapers were being posted annually and 6481 letters and 10,011 newspapers were being received.

Otago Heads, of the new screw steamer Victory which had been placed on the run. The vessel was commanded by Captain James Toogood. She went aground on sand, no lives were lost and the mail was saved. A court of inquiry found that the chief mate was in a state of intoxication at the time the ship struck. The Provincial Government was able to make arrangements for the resumption of the service in November, 1861.

Mail Coaches Introduced With the introduction of Cobb's coaches, overland mails which had previously been carried by packhorse between the southern provinces were taken by coach. In July, 1863, the twice-weekly coach service carried the mails between Christchurch and Dunedin in three days. In 1867 the Invercargill-Bluff railway was opened and mails were carried on this service. The Christchurch-Invercargill railway was completed in 1878 and in October of that year the first New Zealand Railway Travelling Post Office was inaugurated on the Christchurch-Dun-edin run. ■ Dunedin shared with Christchurch the honour of having in the same year, 1862, the first electric telegraph system in New Zealand. Almost at the same time lines were established between Port Chalmers and Dunedin and between Lyttelton and Christchurch. The Dunedin line was constructed under contract with the Provincial Government by Mr Richard Woolley, who later disposed of his Interest in the maintenance of the line to Messrs Driver and McLean, of Dunedin. Telegraph and Telephone By 1865 telegraph stations open to the public were in operation at Bluff, Invercargill, Dunedin, Oamaru. Timaru, Christchurch, Heathcote Valley, and Lyttelton. In 1866 the lelegraph cable was laid across Cook Strait, and Dunedin was brought into direct tele-

A letter dated August 14, 1849, addressed by William Cargill, resident agent of : the New Zealand Company in Dunedin, to William Fox, principal

agent, New Zealand Company, Wellington, gives an impression that Mr Anderson did not intend, to continue his appointment as postmaster for any length of time. This letter was forwarded to Governor Eyre, who minuted an instruction to inform Mr McCarthy (postmaster, Port Chalmers) that if Mr Anderson resign, Mr James Brown, of Princes street, Dunedin, was to be appointed postmaster. Mr Brown was a landowner, and, according to Cargill’s letter, he had erected a respectable dwelling, house and shop on his town allotment immediately fronting the road leading down to the jetty. Mr Anderson did not resign until 1851, when the office was transferred to Mr Brown, at the corner of Princes and Stafford streets. In 1852 the Post Office functions were co-ordinated with those of the Customs Department. The Customs and Post Office were accommodated in a small galvanised iron building situated at the junction of Princes and Jetty streets. This dual function was carried on until 1860. A return of officers dated 1856 shows that Charles Logie was postmaster, and also Col lector of Customs, that Mr Lachlan Langlands was a Post Offi'ce clerk, and Mr John R. Monson was deputy postmaster at Port Chalmers. In 1860 the Post Office separated from the, Customs Department, and Mr Archibald Barr was appointed to the position of chief postmaster. The province was developing steadily, and an increasing volume of correspondence was being handled. Increase in Business The discovery of payable gold in 1861, bringing with it a large influx of population and increase in trade, brought a heavy increase in Post Office business. The increased prosperity to the Provincial Government enabled it to contract directly with steamship proprietors in Melbourne to provide a link service to bring out the English mails. Generally at the period the colony’s overseas mails and interprovincial mails were in a sorry state. Interprovincial services had always been carried on with difficulty. In 1855 Dunedin mail to Auckland was proceeding via Sydney. Difficulties with the British Treasury over a subsidy to the Suez mail lines had always been great- The outbreak of the Maori war in 1860 had seriously encumbered the colony’s slender budgetary system, and it had become necessary to curtail such interprovincial services as had existed and to discontinue the Auckland-Sydney extension of the Suez mail line. The Otago Provincial Government’s initiative in establishing the Melbourne-Port Chalmers link was able to promote a restoration of general efficiency; anti by 1862 New Zealand’s overseas postal communications had attained to a higher stage of efficiency than ». any time previously. Monthly services Melbourne-Port Chalmers, Sydney-Nelson and SydneyAuckland —ensured the arrival of the British mails with as little delay as possible. The transit time Britain-New Zealand was eight weeks, provided that connection was made in Australia. The original Otago-Melbourne contract was suddenly terminated in July, 1861 with the loss in Wickliffe Bay,

graph communication (relayed through Blenheim). with Wellington. In February, 1876, New Zealand was linked to the cable and telegraph systems of the world with the laying of the Sydney-Nelson cable. The year 1879 brought the Otago province again to the forefront, this time with the telephone. The first telephone line in New Zealand was operated between Portobello and Port Chalmers. It has been claimed by the late Mr J. K. Logan, a former chief telegraph engineer of the Post Office, that this telephone line was actually the first in the world used for telephoning telegrams. Bell’s system was patented in 1876. The same year records the first long-distance telephone conversation of note in New Zealand when regarding an impending political crisis, the Premier, Sir George Grey, from Dunedin spoke to- Mr Stewart, M.H.R., in Oamaru. This event created public astonishment at a time when it seemed little short of miraculous that the human voice could be carried such a distance. Two officers who took part in this historic incident were Mr T. M. B. Muir, who made the connection at Dunedin, and Mr F. D. Holdsworth. who supervised the instrument at Oamaru. Mr Holdsworth, at the age of 96, died about 18 months ago. In 1882 a telephone exchange was established at Dunedin with 56 subscribers. The telephones for these first exchanges were of the Edison-Bell type, fitted with a Blake transmitter and the Bell receiver, with head gear carrying dual ear pieces. The receiver was improved locally by producing, to quote an old account, “ only one little ebonite frame about the size of a-watch, to be-held to the ear.” Increasing Post Office functions as early as 1861 placed a considerable burden on Government offices’ accommodation. A building to meet new needs was erected in 1868, but it was deemed too elaborate for Post Office purposes. It became the Stock Exchange building in Princes street. Arrangements were made between the Provincial and Central Governments to transfer the Post Office to the Provincial Government buildings in Princes street. Right up to the time that the present Post Office building was erected, accommodation had been makeshift. The old Courts of Justice, formerly a Post Office building, and other temporary expedients were used. The present Post Office building symbolises the growth of the City of Dunedin and the province of Otago. It symbolises also the growth of an important social ser- , vice which throughout the 100 years’ history of thp province has kept pace with the development of communications. Otago may feel a justifiable pride that in the advances in this ‘country of two of the most important means of communication, the telegraph and the telephone, she stood in the forefront. To-day the Dunedin Chief Post Office handles annually 600.000 telegrams, 950.000 toll calls and 26,500.000 letters and packets. Nine and a-half million letters and packets are delivered by postmen.