Cook Is.
p. 62 · Read in the full issue
After 15 Years In
Mr. E. H. Townsend Returns to New Zealand
From Our Own Correspondent.
Rarotonga, April 20.
RETURNING to Head Office after more than 15 years in Polynesia, Mr. E. H.
Townsend will leave for New Zealand with his family by the Maunganui on April 23.
Arriving in Rarotonga in 1920, he ad vanced rapidly through all the successive stages, from junior assistant to manager of Messrs. A. B. Donald and Co.’s main store here. He assumed the managership on the retirement of Mr. E. J. Matthews, in 1927.
Taking over at the peak of the boom, Mr. Townsend has had the difficult task of steering a large concern, built up on a tradition of prosperity and “good times,” through a period of unprecedented de pression. That he accomplished this suc cessfully merits the warmest admiration for his commercial stamina.
Cultured and artistic, his departure fur ther impoverishes Rarotonga’s social circle. As a former president of the local tennis club and captain of the cricket team, he will be equally missed in sport ing circles.
Twice married, Mr. Townsend’s present wife is a daughter of Mr. R. M. Forester, until recently manager of the Cook Island branch of W. H. Grove and Sons, Ltd., of Auckland, N.Z.