Truly a Canterbury company

Press, 4 August 1987, Page 38

Truly a Canterbury company

Just on 70 years ago, in 1918, Nicholas Turner purchased a small printing business at 625 Colombo Street, printing “In Memoriam” cards in memory of those who had lost their lives during World War I.

In order to get started in the business, Nicholas, who had recently married, sold his house in Addington. He invariably worked a 12-hour day, including Saturdays, doing practically everything from typesetting to machining, to the actual deliveries — and those more often than not, by bicycle. Today, Turners Ltd is a rather different organisation, but in the words of the present general manager, Mr Alan Turner, the company still endeavours to maintain the same attitude towards personal customer service to the business houses of Christ-

church, and Canterbury as the original Turners company.

As the business grew, it became necessary for Nicholas to employ staff. One of his earliest coworkers was his brother, Fred.

The company carried a limited range of general stationery. Customer service was obtained by ringing a bell in the front office and waiting for one of the machine operators to answer the call. Over the years, the nature of the business has changed dramatically to that of a general office supplier providing businesses — from large corporations to the homebased operator — with everything from writing pads and general stationer to office furniture; from personal computers to colour photocopiers and facsimile equipment.

In fact, with the latest renovations, it is possible to find total office supplies all in one store. Nicholas’s first venture into diversification was in Rangiora when he bought into and operated a retail outlet selling gramophones, Vocalation records at 21 6d each, and various fancy goods as well as stationery.

Later the opportunity arose to manufacture caps for the new glass milk bottles which were rapidly replacing milk billies.

The machine was specially manufactured by T.L. Jones and was capable of punching seven caps at one time, printed for each day of the week in two colours. Later, when aluminium caps started to appear on the market, the entire plant was sold to one James Wattie, later to become Sir James, of J. Wattie Canneries, of Hastings, for the princely sum of £2OOO.

Acquisition of the Logan Manufacturing Co. took place in 1932. Later, the name was changed to Lomak Furniture Company, to incorporate the Lomak trade name used by Logans. Today, Lomak

Furniture is an important part of the Turners operation.

Another important element of the over-all interests of Turners Ltd, is the printing works, now located in Antigua Street. Ever since the start of the business, the printing aspect has played a major role. In fact, the move to the new premises in Antigua Street in 1965 created considerable interest among locals. In order to save the enormous cost of totally dismantling the machinery, a section of the roof was removed and each machine was individually hoisted out by crane and loaded on to transporters for the move.

Today, general administration of the company is in the hands of the third generation of Turners with Alan based at the Colombo Street retail premises, Morry, at the Antigua Street printing works, and Peter, and Philip at Lomak.

Nicholas Turner started working within the Christchurch business scene, and today the company is still catering for the same market — quite a record of service to the business houses of Canterbury. <