OLD NEW PLYMOUTH.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1927, Page 11

OLD NEW PLYMOUTH.

. (To the Editor.) Sir, —I am pleased to note that my correction of your version of New Plymouth in 1877 has interested at least one person in the shape of “J.H.,” Midhirst. I think if J.H. will read my contribution again he will find that I allotted Mr. Charlton ae Waitara's first railway porter. Both Charlton and Charnock were, as J.H. states, ex-soldiers, and these billets, I presume, were somewhat as a reward for their services in the army. Perhaps “J.H.” will corroborate my list of the entire staff on the New Plymouth-Waitara railway: General manager, Mr. W. Stone; station clerks, Messrs. Cleary (long and slim), and Gayne (his antithesis); guard, J. Smith; enginedriver, Alf. Wray (afterwards engineer at the original water supply scheme); fireman, Albert Prince (with a bit out of one of his ears, the result, I believe, of an accident on the South Western or some English line); porter, George Charnock (one of his duties being to control a peculiar spring point, at such time as an incoming train was approaching, the said point being situated just at the point near the new office, and where the train took its final turn before running into the modest station). At Waitara, Mr. F. Bluck (he married a daughter of Mrs. Ibbotsen) was in charge of the station, whilst Charlton performed the duties of porter. The surfacemen, as far as my memory serves, were Tom Buckley and one Thomason, the latter a typical Highlander, hailing, I believe, from the Orkney or Shetland Islands, and father of Mrs. George Colson. I cannot recall any other nanies, but Bill 'Crooks I (from Aehfbrd, Kent) and Charlie'Waller (brother of Captain Waller) were 'early I firemen, anil Herb Cummings, a guard,

when the line was extended to Inglewood, and it was in the construction of this section, from Sentry Hill to Inglewood, that O'Neill, so long a familiar figure as caretaker of the Government buildings, had the misfortune to have ‘ his leg badly smashed. O’Neill, of course, was the father of the present day well-known trainer, “Jimmy” O’Neill.—l am, etc., " 1866,”