Started Knitting In The Eighties

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 13

Started Knitting In The Eighties

(Specially written for “The Press’ by

DON GRADY)

f I’OW ARDS the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, in 1880, Mr and Mrs Alfred Rudkin set up a knitting machine in the back room of their modest house in Christchurch.

Today, this enterprise has mushroomed into the biggest manufacturing enterprise in the South Island, with more than 3000 employees.

To a cheap labour country i like Hong Kong, Canterbury— Lane, Walker, Rudkin, Ltd., — can export products such as men’s hose. Hong Kong has quite a large “snob-value” trade—people like a product of superior quality—and the woollen with a small percentage of nylon hose from New Zealand has been selling well there.

The same can be said of 17 major stores in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Other Canterbury export successes include decorative blankets and bed-spreads to Japan, now much in demand because of the highest living standards of the Japanese and their progressive Westernisation.

The Japanese seek the blankets because of their attractive colours, because they are pure wool and because of the quality packaging. By far the greatest amount of Canterbury production is

for the expanding New Zealand market In broad terms, the products of Canterbury are for the New Zealanders, and they are family suppliers. Canterbury’s main plant covers an area of 9j acres in Montreal street. It has branches in Blenheim, Westport, Hokitika and Greymouth. Subsidiary manufacturing

plants operate in Auckland and Wellington. In Ashburton, the company has a modern woollen mill.

The company has a London office, complete with specialist staff to keep its New Zealand plants abreast with the latest world trends in fashions.

Lane, Walker. Rudkin, Ltd., was formed in 1904 by a trio of far-sighted men. Mr Alfred Rudkin joined Mr John Lane and Mr Pringle Walker, who had bought a struggling woollen mill in Ashburton.

For the next 29 years, the factory manufactured only woollen goods. Later came such expansion as the manufacture of cotton interlock. In the world wars the firm devoted its resources to supply of blankets, socks and underwear to the forces. In 1948, the manufacture of men’s suits was started along with sports coats and trousers, which had begun in 1946.

Later came sportswear, sports shirts, fully-fashioned and seamfree hosiery, and fully-fashioned knitwear garments were added to the range.

While the firm’s sewing plants are today turning out great quantities of knitwear and swimwear, planners are making preparations for summer next year and the winter of 1968.

The countless visitors to: the Canterbury factories each year see in operation one of the modern nylon hosiery plants in the country. The plant is fully automated. Other visitors are interested in the complex dye-house and laboratory. A constant source of pride of the company, is its own autonomy. It is nearly a self-

supporting community with five cafeterias, an electricians’ shop, a carpenters’ shop, and an industrial clinic with two industrial nurses. It also has a shop for the staff. When Canterbury undertakes a major structural change, this, too, is usually carried out by its own staff. The picture shows a circular knitting machine producing inter-lock for underwear. A group of schoolchildren, and Australian Olympic gold medallist, John Devitt, are looking on.

Canterbury Industry