BRIEF PARTNERSHIP

Press, Issue 30997, 1 March 1966, Page 9

BRIEF PARTNERSHIP

The third owners of the business were James Mortlock and Thomas Hudson James Mortlock was a farmer from the village of Pidley, about six miles from St. Ives in Huntingdon, where William Minson and his family lived. Mortlock lost practically all he had in a speculation on the Stock Exchange which failed when a shipment of Russian wheat did not arrive in time. The Minson family was friends with the Mortlock family and was greatly upset by Mortlock’s losses. A Minson

f family diary records e that Mortlock “sang a d good song, one of his i. favourites being ‘Alice, a where art thou?’” 7 Mortlock decided to come to New Zealand ® to make a fresh start ? and went into partner1 ship with Thomas i Hudson to buy the business of J. H. Spencer and Co. i The partners disconf tinued selling some of t the heavier ironmongs ery lines preferring to j concentrate on a range - of less expensive hard8 ware and similar goods. Their early adi vertisements refer to

marble mantelpieces, Register stoves, ranges and so on. Late r advertisements show that they stocked floorcloth, fancy goods, bicycles besides the usual crockery and household hardware. The partnership was short and appears to have deteriorated. After their first year of successful trading, Mortlock returned to England intending to bring his family back with him. Within two weeks of his arriving in England he died after an attack of pleurisy.