Deputy Registrar Of Births Is Woman

Press, Volume C, Issue 29503, 3 May 1961, Page 2

Deputy Registrar Of Births Is Woman

"In this office we feel we are not only giving a service to the publie, but sharing in their sad times and their happy ttaes” said Miss Noia Lister, deputy Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages and Electors, yesterday. Miss Lister was appointed to her present job In March and is the second woman to hold it in Christchurch. In the absence of the registrar and the male deputy. Miss Lister is qualified to perform marriages and sign any and certificates that he w®’d normally sign. "But I don’t think couples like to be married by a woman,” she said. “I heard that one or two who found my predecessor was to marry them, preferred to wait for the registrar himself. Possibly they didn't think they would be so well married,

although they would be of course.”

Miss Lister was appointed to the post automatically as she was the senior clerk in the office at the time of the vacancy. She comes from Timaru where she worked in the Justice Department, which houses the Supreme Court. Magistrate’s Court, and the offices of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages under the same roof.

Changes of duties, which occur in every Public Service office, introduced her to the work she is doing now It also gave her the opportunity of acting as clerk of the Court in the Magistrate’s Court.

When a vacancy in the Christchurch Registrar’s office occurred two years ago, Miss Lister was transferred. She had just returned from a working holiday in Australia.

In Sydney she worked as a typist in the Navy Department, in Melbourne for an insurance firm, and at a children’s hospital in Adelaide Of her present job. Miss Lister says it seems to be a woman's work. Dealing with the paper work for major events in people’s lives appeals to her. But an essential quality needed for this is tact. Asking questions can

be embarrassing for all concerned. “For all parts of this work we have to ask questions and people are required by law to answer them correctly,” she said. “Occasionaly we get people who refuse to answer even after they have talked to the Registrar himself. Then the job is really quite awkward for us.”

Miss Lister and others in similar jobs throughout the country, make constant use of reference books that they keep close at hand The names of places of births or deaths are all carefully cheeked and where possible, at the counter while the person is there. All hospitals and medical practitioners in the district are listed, also the names of members of the clergy. If a vacancy occurred and Miss Lister was eligible, she could become a Registrar herself. “That, if it ever does happen, is certainly a long way off." she said. (