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public counter especially was ludicrously insufficient. After 1895 a telephone exchange serving eighty connections had also to be accommodated. Only the courtesy and good management of the postmaster lessened public exasperation. The popular William St George Douglas, prominent in military and social affairs, held the position from 1877 to 1897 during which time his staff increased from five to sixteen. (Another official, R. E. Lechner, served from 1875 to 1908 when he became postmaster at Geraldine. He was a foundation member of the working men’s and bowling clubs and a keen organiser of flower shows.) At last in the early hours of 22 March 1900 one of Ashburton’s less regretted fires removed the building and obtained, what repeated requests had failed to secure, a new office of the standard usual in towns of the size of Ashburton.

The railway station remained, opposite the post office, an eyesore and the butt of rueful jokes. Women entered their waiting room reluctantly when driven by the weather from the unprotected platform. The station yard was so restricted that irritating delays occurred in handling rolling stock. Meetings of protest complained that Ashburton ranked eighth in New Zealand in amount of traffic and its tearooms fourth. Yet the buildings were worse than those at Rakaia or Rolleston. However, in 1895, instead of new buildings sited further north as had been promised for ten years, the ‘old shanties’ were enlarged, and painted. ‘They will look as proudly at us as a tramp with a clean shirt’, complained the Ashburton Guardian.^[1] The courthouse and the County Council offices on Baring Square East were insignificant; the former built in 1879 was not repainted for at least thirteen years. Only the Borough Council offices could be compared in appearance with the better commercial buildings. That was by accident.

In 1880 the town library was in the doldrums. The efforts of Bullock and others to revive it coincided with the demands of Stephen Poyntz, secretary of the Industrial Association, for a museum and resulted in a decision to build again. Then a fire destroyed the old building. The committee asked for a site in Baring Square West. The Borough Council tried to fob them off with the back of the fire brigade section in Wakanui Road—now occupied by the Plunket rooms. The brigade objected and after a year of dispute, the committee obtained a grant of the land they wanted. Support for the project lasted long enough to produce one of the better buildings in the town and then faded away. In