50 YEARS OF SERVICE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 538, 15 December 1928, Page 14

50 YEARS OF SERVICE

BANK OFFICER’S RECORD GENERAL MANAGER OF B.N.Z. (Special to THE SUE) WELLINGTON, To-day. To-day Mr. Henry Buckleton, general manager of the Bank of New Zealand, completes his 50th year in the service of the bank, having entered its employment on December 16, ISTB. Mr. Buckleton was born in Sydney in 1865. the son of Sir George Buckleton, a once well-known Australian journalist. He happened to be acquainted with a teller in the Sydney branch of the Bank of New Zealand, and it was probably that acquaintance which led him to seek a position on the bank’s staff. Mr. Buckleton worked in Sydney until 1891. In that year he was transferred to Melbourne as acting-account-ant, and in May of the next year he was sent as accountant to Hamilton. Exactly a year after his arrival in New Zealand he was appointed to be accountant in Auckland. For eight years he served the bank there before he was transferred again. This time it was to the position of manager at New Plymouth, where he stayed for four years, being sent in 1905 as acting chief inspector to head office in Wellington. In February, 1906, he was sent back to Auckland as manager of the Auckland branch, and he remained in that position until February, 1920. During those 14 years he made a tour of the world lasting 18 months on behalf of the bank, and in 1925, when he had been general manager for five years, he visited England again, this time on holiday. He was appointed to the general managership in succession to Mr. William Callender, and at the time of his appointment he fas 55 years old. So far as is known there is no officer of the bank who has been longer in the service than Mr. Buckleton.

In 1894 Mr. Buckleton married the eldest daughter of Mr. W. A. Graham, of Hamilton, and he has two sons and three daughters. His elder son, Mr. R. G. Buckleton, is employed by the bank in Wellington, and the younger is on the staff of a Wellington firm. The daughters are Mrs. A. I. Walker, of Kiwitahi, Waikato, Mrs. G. C. Sharpe, of Sydney, and Miss Jean Buckleton. of Wellington.