Introduction

Imagine a time when life was so certain that when you built a building for your business you were confident enough in the future that you put the name of the business into the very fabric of the building.

This is not a time of mergers and takeovers of globalisation and restructure, this is when life was more local and certain.

There are a number of such buildings around and so this blog is an attempt to record some of them and more importantly a bit of the history of the business which by and large are no longer with us.

If you know something about any of these business please add a comment. You can do this without having to sign up for anything and can be anonomous if you prefer.



Monday, August 16, 2010

Union Steam Ship Company

This is Cnr Vogel and Water Streets

The Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Limited, which despite its name was a company founded in England with Head Office in Lombard St London.

A good history of the comapany is to be found here http://www.nzshipmarine.com/history/companies.aspx?id=8 The short version is founded in 1875 with its principal initial place of business being Dunedin. From here it went on to be the dominant shipping business in New Zealand being almost a monopoly and definately dominating the all important Trans Tasman trade.
During its life it owned over 300 ships and was for a time the largest private employer in New Zealand.
It had a hand in founding one of the first commercial air lines in NZ which went on to become Air New Zealand.
It finished its time in 2000.
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