CANTERBURY STOCK AND STATION FIRMS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27920, 17 March 1956, Page 11

CANTERBURY STOCK AND STATION FIRMS

Development From Early Days

"A COLONIAL INVENTION"

[Specially written for “The h,, n e ress G. R. MACDONALD] k'Aco t,h^E"£h Vanne/o"aTundred yeara S need of such a person usualh-TtenanV farmer on ease and the landlord and his ascot wo.-e. m , ■ a ' , in lhe world for bin? J,“ farming conditions he relied on them for renewals and repairs and he could not afford to get on the wrong side of them He on v needed suthcien capital to buy stock and implements, whiehcon81S W Pe iV Sln Ble furrow ploughs, a set of harrows and a crude roller, scythes, pitchforks, reaping hooks and flails.

He and his wife would drive into the market town every market day, she having packed into the farm cart the produce o f ‘he 5* al n and ‘ h e farm yard. He would verv likely have a pig or a calf in the back. Auctioneering had barely started; they would sell nearly all their produce direct.

If the farmer had some sheep or a beast he would sell direct to a butcher. If he had some grain to sell he would take a sample into the farmers’ room to display it. He would sell his wool on the farm to a travelling buyer. If he wanted a new shepherd or teamster he would go into the market town on hiring day and look over the men standing about waiting to be engaged—the shepherds distinguished by their crooks, the teamsters by a length of whiplash tied in their buttonhole.

This was the way of life the farmer lettlers of Canterbury had been brought up to. and this was what they tried for a time to reproduce. The demand for a stock and station agent—such an integral part of the New Zealand farming structure—had never erisen in the Old Country, and therefore such a thing had never developed there, nor has it to this day to any extent.

Ey the time of the middle sixties in Canterbury, farming had got well under way in those parts of the country not cut off by big unbridged rivers. The Waimakariri was bridged by William White, and North Canterbury as far as Leithfield was pretty well settled. The townships of Kaiapoi. Woodend and Rangiora were developing. and the idea occurred to various people- to start a market day in these places in imitation of the market days they had known in the Old Country. Similarly, the Ellesmere district was being drained and the townships of Leeston and Southbridge were growing. Often a local publican, with an eye to profit, would build stockyards hoping to recoup himself by charges for yarding stock and selling quantities of beer. In Rangiora a group of farmers organised a fair and built stockyards which remained till a year or two ago. The first fair was held in January, 1869. and it was estimated that there were 1500 people there. About 1600 sheep were entered, end 250 cattle, 50 horses, and 50 pigs. The “Lyttelton Times'* referred to it as “the Smithfield of the North.”

Country Fairs But somehow or other the idea, of direct dealing between seller and buyer never appealed in Canterbury. Enterprising auctioneers found they were welcome at these fairs, and in a very few years the fairs had become the country sales as we have known them till recently. Now ease and speed of road transport is killing them. Various attempts were made to organise a corn exchange, but they all failed. After that, farmers settled dcwn to selling to a seed and grain merchant or their own stock agent. Wheat was big business in the 80’s, when there was a very large surplus for export, and G. G. Stead and Peter Cunningham and the Friedlanders made and lost fortunes and John Grigg and Duncan Cameron had 5000 acres in crop. The stock agent started either as a merchant and shipping agent or as an auctioneer. When the merchant landed, say,, a shipload of sugar, he employed an auctioneer to sell it for him. Then these two separate functions started to coalesce into one firm. The man who was able to finance the farmer naturally got the selling of his produce. The ability to finance became the most important key to success. The stock and station agent as he has developed is the farmer’s banker, sells his stock and his wool, buys his grain and his seed, which he dresses and sells, finds a buyer for his farm and finances him into a new one, keeps his accounts, makes out his tax returns, and even helps him to make his will. He has agents all over the country, he has experts who will execute buying orders for stock of all sorts and he will supply the farmer with all the stores he wants.

Early Lyttelton Firms

Frederick Gonnerman Dalgety started in Melbourne the worldfamous firm which bears his name. He was a merchant* and buying gold during the gold rush gave him his opportunity. His brother Edward came across to Lyttelton in 1858, and started business there as a merchant and shipping agent. Edward soon took George Buckley (who had married his sister) into partnership.

These branches seemed to be connected with the main office in Melbourne by rather a slender thread. In each branch a partner was taken and the branch bore his name. So, in Lyttelton the firm was Dalgety. Buckley and Company, in Dunedin. Dalgety, Rattray and Company, and in Sydney still another name. Ernest Dalgety died in 1867. and w’as the only member of the family who ever actually managed the branch in Canterbury. Dalgety in Canterbury remained a merchant and •hipping business until the 90’s, when the firm of Miles and Company went into voluntary liquidation. This firm had a first-class business, and Dalgety was. probably, the only company in Canterbury strong enough financially to take it over. F. A. Archer went •cross from Miles to Dalgety, and later became manager. This was the beginning of Dalgety and Company as stock and station agents in Canterbury. The original merchant firm of Lyttelton was Longden and Le Cren. who •rected an iron warehouse in preparation for the landing of the First Four Ships. The two Le Cren brothers later moved to Timaru, and a Le Cren Joined with E. R. Guinness in foundlnS the firm of Guinness and Le Cren. which later joined the merger which took the name of Pyne. Gould, Guinness. J. T. Peacock as a youth attended an early ball at Lyttelton, and had a partner for the quadrille and took his station in a set in which Longden also had a partner. Longden by gesture and expression showed his contempt for the youth whom he obviously considered of no class to take Part in a quadrille with him. When the ball was *over and Longden, a great lady’s man, was helping the ladies on with their cloaks Peacock Went up to him and puOed his nose— Purely a form of insult expressing the greatest possible contempt. Longden iued him for assault and was given r \ er .^ ict with £2 damages. Peacock it was the best money’s worth ever had in his life. The successor to Longden and Le

Cren was Cookson and Bowler. Isaac Cookson was the leading merchant of his time. His home on the Heathcote, called Green Hammerton, was well known, and when Bishop Harper had landed at Lyttelton with his large family and was coming down the Bridle Track they stopped and had strawberries and cream with the Cooksons. Cookson was a member of the Provincial Council and of the General Assembly, and was president 18"5 he Canterbury Jockey Club in

In the 60’s Cookson and Bowler were in debt to the extent of £50.000 to the famous China merchants Jardine. Matheson, who sent out J. D. Macpherson to take over what was left of the wreck. This was the start of the firm of Mathesons in Canterbury. They were only here by accident, and after W. L. Chrystall had come out and succeeded Macpherson he took over the business and carried it on under his own name. Charles Clark, better known as a house and land agent, started the Leeston sale in yards built by J. J. Loe, hotel and storekeeper. It took Clark three days to do the job—a day to drive there, a day for the sale, and a day to drive home. F. C. Tabart was a well known figure in Canterbury. He was a partner in Highfield, until the run was crippled by the great snow of *6B. Then he went to Hokitika, where he joined Mark Sprott, the auctioneer, and during his time there he was three times Mayor of the town. He came to Christchurch in ’77, went into partnership with Robert Wilkin, and bought the business when Wilkin died. Pyne and Company absorbed Tabart and Company in 1906. Miles and Company were an English family of bankers and merchants. They started a branch in Australia, and Frederick Banks was sent to Canterbury to start a branch here. The firm gradually developed from a merchants’ business to something approximating ’the modern stock and station agency with J. T. Ford as partner and auctioneer. Murray-Aynsley, who was a member of the Miles family, came out to manage in Christchurch. Fulbert Archer, father of F. A. Archer, who was related by marriage, came out to manage the Timaru branch. Different members of the Miles family visited New Zealand at times to have a look round, but none of them ever took any active part in their New Zealand business. T. M. Hassell was their best-known manager, and became a partner and the Canterbury firm became known as Miles. Hassall. They sold out to Dalgety and Company in the depths of the 90’s slump.

Ability and Integrity George Gould was a very early merchant and was by far the most successful. He came to Auckland, put together a frame house there, and set it up on the sfte of Christchurch ready for the arrival of the First Four Ships. This was part dwelling house and part store, and stood in Armagh street. Not counting a surveyor’s hut and a rough wooden shed put up as a survey office, if was the first dwellinghouse in Christchurch. He was famous for his wealth, but even more famous for his generosity. He had various farms of which the best known were Mount Magdala Farm and Folly Farm. Springston, and he had a half share in the famous Springfield station, of which Duncan Cameron was managing partner. His rise to wealth and importance was meteoric. In a few years he was dealing with station owners, buying and selling stations and financing men into them. Not only was he very able, but his. integrity was such that men entrusted their capital to him for investment. He was a shipper of wool on a very large scale, and the proceeds of the wool he brought to Canterbury in the form of goods, which he had the organisation to dispose of quickly and profitably. Wynn Williams once said that the two most highly esteemed names in Canterbury were C. C. Bowen and George Gould. His eldest son, Joseph, founded the firm of Lewis and Gould, later Gould, Beaumont, which became part of the firm of Pyne. Gould, Guinness. Robert Wilkin, the founder of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, was all his life engaged in station business in one way or another. He had a quarter share in St. Leonard’s with Robert Heaton Rhodes. He was the first man to hold local wool sales. He imported various highclass sheep and a well-known American trotting stallion called Berlin. When he died, the goodwill of the firm was put up for auction and was bought by F.. C. fabart. His son,

James, carried on a similar business for a time. His work for the Agricultural and Pastoral Association was so highly esteemed that the committee asked him to get his portrait painted so that it might hang in the association’s rooms. Wilkin and Company and Miles and Company played each other at cricket every year. The firm of Matson and Company has been dealt with in another article. There is no doubt that J. T. Matson did more than any other single man to develop the conception of the modern stock and station agent. He was enterprising, dynamic, full of ideas and had great sympathy with the small struggling farmer. Pyne and Company does not belong to the early history of Canterbury, but it should be mentioned, if only to complete the origins of the present firm of Pyne, Gould. Guinness. Pyne and Boyle were both young and energetic, and made a success of their business. Pyne was considered the best auctioneer of thoroughbreds in his day in New Zealand. Many Saleyards There were various saleyards scattered round the outskirts of Christchurch—one at Papanui behind what used to be the Sawyers Arms, now the Phoenix Hotel, another at Spreydon; but the best known were the Carlton yards, built by A. W. Money, owner of the Carlton Hotel. Matson and Company leased these yards, and collected fees for all the stock sold in them. By the middle 70’s, it was generally felt that the yards were too small and that the district was no longer suitable, being too much built over. J. T Matson, in spite of his interest in the Carlton yards, presided over a meeting called to consider the question of a new Christchurch stock market The result was that 10 acres at Addington were bought from George Tickner for £2OO an acre. He had bought a section there and had done very well out of it, having sold the rest to the Government for railway purposes. The yards were opened on November 18, 1874, and there were yarded 7300 sheep and 532 cattle. This was the beginning of the Addington saleyards, and it now looks as if the end may be indefinitely postponed. -

There were numerous other saleyards in the middle of the City of Christchurch in the early days, and of course Tattersails one went till recent times. Clarkson Brothers built a saleyards called the Midland Yards where the abbatoirs now are, but they were a failure.

If the English farmer had no need of a stock ahd station agent, the Canterbury farmer could hardly have started without one. Let us take as an example one of the land-hungry crowd that swarmed into Ashburton County when the Rakaia was bridged and the railway reached Ashburton. He had probably saved a couple of hundred pounds by contract ploughing, and had been living in a tent with his wife and family. He had no landlord, which was a very good thing for him, and instead of a well grassed farm with good hedges and a picturesque stone house, mossy with centuries, he would have to build a sod house as quickly as possible and cover it with some sheets of iron. He would have to ring fence his farm, which would be a windswept waste of tussock without a stick of shelter. He would go. to Friedlander Brothers, who would give him his seed wheat on condition that he sold the crop to them. He would be continually in need of credit, his money only coming in once or twice a year. He would crop his farm twice at least, and by that time he would have saved enough to buy some ewes. At the end of his life he would probably be a tired and worn-out man, but he would be able to ±ook about him an independent man, standing on his own feet, and see, instead of the windswept waste of tussock, a sheltered homestead and buildings, paddocks well fenced, sheltered and watered, and sheep grazing the green grass.