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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Post Office

Post Office.

The Oamaru Post And Telegraph Office occupies a central position in Thames Street, Oamaru. The present fine building, which is constructed of Oamaru stone, and is two stories in height, with a basement, is erected on a section adjoining the old original post office building, with which it forms a striking contrast. The ground floor is used entirely for the postal, telegraph, money order and post office savings bank business, and the next floor is used by the Defence Department. The building was erected in 1884. A telephone exchange with 186 subscribers is connected with the office. The postal district controlled by the officer in charge of the Oamaru Post Office, extends from Waitaki to the Waihemo rivers; there are forty-two sub-offices in the district, and the staff at Oamaru numbers thirty-two members.

Mr. William Whitwill Beswick , Postmaster at Oamaru, was born near Scarborough, England, in 1848. He arrived with his parents in Lyttelton in October, 1853, by the ship “John Taylor,” was educated in Canterbury, and joined the staff of the post office in Timaru as clerk on the 1st of August, 1867. He became postmaster at Timaru in 1873, and page 509 acting chief postmaster in January, 1880, and was appointed to Westport in June, 1881. In December, 1885, Mr. Beswick was transferred to Gisborne as chief postmaster, and there he remained till May, 1897, when he took charge at Oamaru. He was married, in 1873, to a daughter of the late Mr. Johns C. Cuff, of Christchurch, and has three sons and three daughters.

Mr. Frederick Bicknell was for many years Postmaster at Oamaru, and is a native of Tooting, Surrey, England, where he was born in 1819. In 1842 he emigrated to Port Philip, where he became a squatter on the Goulburn River, and continued there as such till 1864, when he came to Otago. Mr. Bicknell joined the postal service in Dunedin, and was appointed postmaster at Oamaru on the 1st of May, 1867. He retired in 1880, and for seven years subsequently was secretary to the Oamaru Woollen Factory Company. Mr. Bicknell was married, in 1855, to Miss Armstrong, of Kilmore, and has eight daughters and two sons.