The Christchurch Customhouse Department has rooms in the Post Office Buildings. They are on the ground floor, and the entrance is from Cathedral Square, on the eastern side of the building. The district extends from Ashburton in the south to Kaikoura in the north. There is a branch office at Lyttelton, in charge of a local collector.

Mr. J. Mills, who was for many years stationed at Westport, was appointed Collector at Christchurch in succession to the late Mr. E. Patten, on that gentleman's retirement in 1901.

Mr. Alfred Carter, Landing Surveyor. Custom House, Christchurch, was born at Maraetara, Napler, in 1855. He was educated at Mr. J. F. Haye's school, at Guernsey, Channel Islands, from which he returned in 1871. Entering the custom house in Napier as a cadet in 1874 he was appointed clerk at Gisborne in the following year and transferred to Wellington in 1879 as second clerk. Eight years later he was promoted to be landing waiter and in 1894 was transferred to Wairau as collector. He has held the position he now occupies in Christchurch since 1897. Mr. Carter is the third son of the late Captain J. C. L. Carter of the 53rd Regiment and formerly Superintendent of Hawke's Bay. Mr. Carter was married in 1878 to a daughter of the late Mr. Brooke Taylor, of Napier, and has three children.

Captain James Alfred Henry Marciel, late R.N.R., Superintendent of Mercantile Marine at the port of Lyttelton, and one of the Examiners of Masters and Mates for the Colony, was born at Parkhurst, in the Isle of Wight in 1854, and was educated at the Newport diocesan school in his native island. He served on Her Majesty's training ship “Worcester,” and became a master at the age of twenty-one, gaining his extramaster's certificate four years later. After many years' service in the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, he settled in Christchurch in 1891, where he arrived per s.s. “Ionic,” and was appointed examiner of masters and mates in 1895. Captain Marciel was married in 1888 to the youngest daughter of the late Rev. William Scarr Redfern, of St. Mary's, Taunton, and has one daughter. He is a Justice of the Peace for the Colony, and one of the Visiting Justices at Lyttelton Gaol.