Mr. Vincent West Ardern was appointed Foreman of the New Plymouth Borough Council's stone crushing and street rolling plant in the year 1903. He was born in Manchester, England, in 1866, and came with his parents to New Zealand in 1869. Mr. Ardern was educated at Inglewood, and for some time afterwards served time as a mechanical enengineer, with an uncle, Mr. W. T. West, in the erection of dairy factories in the Taranaki district. Later, he was employed in sawmilling, and subsequently took charge of the Stratford County Council's stone crushing plant, for seven years, before receiving his present appointment. Mr. Ardern holds a first-class competency certificate as a driver of locomotive and traction engines, and has a dairy farm of 100 acres in the Inglewood district. He is married, and has six children.