OLD TELEGRAPH ENGINEER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 112, 3 July 1911, Page 5

OLD TELEGRAPH ENGINEER.

RETIRING ON PENSION. Mr. W. S. Furby, M.1.E.E., telegraph engineer, who has retired on pension at Ids own request from the Post and Telegraph Service, after 46 years’ service, has received from officers throughout the service a gift of a handsome roller-top desk. Mr. Furby was the senior officer of the whole Department. Educated at Christ’s College, Christchurch, he joined the Telegraph Service as a cadet early in 1865, and the following year, at the ago of loss than 17, was placed in charge of the Hokitika Telegraph Office, occupying that position for seven years during the most stirring times of the goldfields. Ho also had the arduous duty of dealing with the extensive telegraph dispatches occasioned by the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when the Panama steamers brought the news to Hokitika. which was the first port of call. While Mr. Furby was at Hokitika, the provincial telegraph and staff were transferred to the General Government, and in 1873 he was promoted to the charge of the Blenheim office, then an important transmitting centre. The staff under his control, all young men, comprised a large number of the most promising operators, and the close application necessitated by the strenuous nature of the work, and the limited and indifferent wire accommodation, made them very proficient. Many of these officers arc now occupying senior positions in fb<> service. Mr. Furby remahied in Blenheim for seven years, when he was, in 1886, apnointed nffieev-in-chargo of telegraphs at Auckland, where ho was instrumental in inaugurating the telephone exchange. After holding the position for over twenty rears. Air. Furby was. in 1900, appointed electrician and inspector of tdegraohs at Wellington, and returned to Auckland as telegraph engineer for the Auckland district, in 1909, whi-'h position lie hold until he retired.