The Customs House collected and processed duties on shipping, cargo and gold coming into the city, as well as reporting on the revenue of imports and exports, and statistical information regarding migration. Captain Andrew Ellis was appointed Invercargill's first Custom’s Officer, Magistrate and Postmaster. The town's first Customs House was a weather-board office on the west-side of Dee Street, built in 1858. In 1863 a new Customs House was erected on the west side of Clyde Street, near the Otepuni Stream. This was Invercargill’s first building to be constructed with bricks. The office later moved back to it's old site in the Government Buildings Block on Dee Street.

SOURCES: PAPERS PAST; OLD INVERCARGILL BY JOHN HALL-JONES, REF:993.98 HAL