Stone, Son and Co

This is Anzac Avenue, Dunedin

The top of the building says Printers, Bookbinders at the left side and Publishers , Stationers on the Right Side with Stone's Directories proudly in the middle.

The actual name of the company Stone, Sone & Co is over what was the door further down

Why the door was not in the middle of an othewise symetrical building is a bit of a mystery but I am sure there was a good reason. These days this building has been converted into apartments hence why the door is now a window.

So this company is best know for the Directories so prominently advertised in the middle of the building, for those not familiar with it before there were telephones therer were no white or yellow pages that we are so familiar with these days. Before them were directories produced by various publishers but in the South it was Stones that dominated.

These were lists compiled in various orders of the people and business in the city and where to find them.



J K Mooneys Ltd

This is Lower Stuart Street, Dunedin

Most people would know Mooneys as Furriers and creators of fashion garments but as this entry shows that was a later incarnation of the business.

Taken from here http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/pdf/hoc_fr_bulletins/Bull_50_Farming.pdf

J.K.Mooney & Co. Ltd, established by George Stewart and J.K.Mooney in 1911 to deal in sheepskins, wool oddments and rabbit skins. Mooney withdrew and left the business to Stewart in 1913 and despite some severe financial troubles as commodity prices and exchange rates fluctuated, the company continued until 1977. In the 1920s and 1930s it developed a huge business in rabbit skins with United States buyers and in 1939 the company was the largest exporter of sheepskins out of New Zealand, with branches at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Timaru and Invercargill. The trade in rabbit skins ended in 1952 although after World War 2 large volumes of opossum skins were exported. A brief history of the company is contained in the booklet J.K.Mooney and Co. Ltd. (1952) but a more extensive coverage is presented in Fur to Fashion written in 1991 by D.W.Stewart, a former director. It provides a comprehensive account of the dealings in wool, sheep skins, rabbit skins, opossum skins, seal skins and the skins of angora, chinchilla, stoats and ferrets.Mooney withdrew and left the business to Stewart in 1913 and despite some severe financial troubles as commodity prices and exchange rates fluctuated, the company continued until 1977. In the 1920s and 1930s it developed a huge business in rabbit skins with United States buyers and in 1939 the company was the largest exporter of sheepskins out of New Zealand, with branches at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Timaru and Invercargill. The trade in rabbit skins ended in 1952 although after World War 2 large volumes of opossum skins were exported. A brief history of the company is contained in the booklet J.K.Mooney and Co. Ltd. (1952) but a more extensive coverage is presented in Fur to Fashion written in 1991 by D.W.Stewart, a former director. It provides a comprehensive account of the dealings in wool, sheep skins, rabbit skins, opossum skins, seal skins and the skins of angora, chinchilla, stoats and ferrets.

Mostly a similar story but a different slant provided by a Biography of George Stewart
taken from here http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4s49/1

Born in Dunedin on 23 December 1885, George Stewart was the son of William Stewart, a Scottish-born confectioner, and his Irish wife, Ellen O'Sullivan. He left High Street School shortly before his 13th birthday and his first job, as a rabbiter, set the direction of his career. In 1901, aged 15, George joined White and Company, local exporters of wool, sheep skins, rabbit skins and carcasses; four years later he became foreman.


In 1912 Stewart joined with James Kennedy Mooney, the young manager of the firm, to form J. K. Mooney and Company. Stewart brought practical knowledge, Mooney business experience and capital. Their competitors saw them as interlopers, but they survived and ventured into export: their first consignment of rabbit skins fetched a record price in London. When Mooney pulled out in 1913 because of ill health, Stewart borrowed money, arranged a modest overdraft, and bought the company. On 2 September 1913, at North East Valley, Dunedin, he married Gwendoline Wedmore Coombs. They were to have five sons and three daughters.

George Stewart had already learned the art of auction buying and realised the value of consistent and reliable grading of skins. This was to become the key to the success of his export trade, because customers could buy with confidence. Equally important was Stewart's talent for making friends. His first task was to build capital and exports, but during the First World War shipping was scarce. Undaunted, Stewart and his staff made up skins in nine-pound parcels and posted 8,000 of them to London. They fetched high prices in the starved market.

In 1918 Lee Schoen, representing Isaac Schoen and Sons of New York, visited New Zealand and found in George Stewart a reliable supplier of rabbit skins for American furriers and hatters. Through the Schoen family Stewart established links with European importers and, on his first overseas trip in 1924, he made contact with A. Hollander and Sons of Newark, New Jersey, reputedly America's largest fur-processing company. This introduction enabled Stewart to fulfil his dream of creating an integrated fur-processing industry in New Zealand.

As early as 1918 Stewart had asked his father-in-law, John Coombs, a former tanner, to dress some rabbit skins. A local manufacturer and wholesaler ordered cuffs, collars and trimmings, and soon Coombs was dressing and dyeing rabbit skins in his North East Valley workshop, while his daughters and other local women cut and sewed the pieces. As demand grew, Stewart engaged a furrier to make stoles, coats and other garments. He wrote that it 'was extraordinary business and I was jubilant'. But the technology was outdated, and in 1926 he sent his nephew, L. J. Blackman, to Hollander's plant to observe modern processing methods, which were then adopted.

In addition to J. K. Mooney and Company, George Stewart founded Mooneys (1923) to make and sell fur garments locally, and Fur Dressers and Dyers (1927) to process local and imported furs. He also ran the family confectionery business after his father's death in 1915. In 1928, intending to establish a rabbit wool and fur industry, Stewart set up two farms to breed angora and chinchilla rabbits.

The Wall Street stockmarket crash of 1929 caught J. K. Mooney and Company with large consignments of devalued stock overseas, and by the end of 1930 Stewart was insolvent. He lost his financial interests in Mooneys and Fur Dressers and Dyers, and the rabbit farms and Stewart Confectionery were liquidated. With the good will of his creditors, he floated a limited company on a £1,000 mortgage and for the next three years worked on a nominal salary. The company survived and Stewart set about restoring its fortunes. He had a flair for exploring new ideas: in 1936 he commissioned Jack Welsh of Dunedin to make a promotional film about the rabbit-skin trade for screening overseas. While in England later that year Stewart bought some rabbits at a butcher's shop and had the skins processed. Satisfied with their quality, he sent his eldest son, Norman, to Thetford, Norfolk, to set up a factory to process rabbits trapped on local estates; the venture was short-lived, however.

At the outbreak of the Second World War George Stewart offered the government free use of J. K. Mooney and Company's stores to establish the New Zealand Sheep-skin Control. With R. C. Burgess as controller and Stewart as his deputy, sheepskin production was successfully directed to the war effort. After the war Stewart continued rebuilding the company: three of his sons, Norman, Denys and Robert, became directors and agencies were set up in Antwerp, Bradford, Hamburg, Mazamet (France), Milan, Boston, New York and Toronto.

With the formation of the Rabbit Destruction Council in 1947 the rabbit was progressively devalued, and in September 1952 the last New Zealand rabbit-skin sale took place in Dunedin. George Stewart attended, and saw the end of an industry that he had done so much to develop. He died in Dunedin on 1 January 1955, survived by his wife and children.

Otago Harbour Board

This is 57 Fryatt Street, Dunedin

Not much to look at now but once the offices of the Otago Harbour Board.

The functions the Board carried out are as far as I can tell split between Port Otago and its subsidiary Chalmers Properties and probably the Regional Council has picked up some as well.

The name is just above the door in case you can't spot it in this photo (double click to enlarge)

The building appears to be currently storage at best. It would probably scrub up ok with a bit of TLC although I have no idea what the state of it is on the inside.



With the Port Otago offices now at Port Chalmers beside the container warf and with this building sited at the end of the harbour opposite bulk store sheds, it tells you something about how the shipping business in particular has changed.

Austin Motors (Otago) Ltd

This is Jervois Street, Dunedin

Remember these ? The Morris Minor made by Austin Motor car.

Not the one in Jervois Street they were just the agent for the British company. Not only did they make their mark on the building but in the pavement as well

The tricky bit is that this sign is on the other side of the road and on the corner. However a look at the greater building on this side of the street reveals this at the other corner and while it doesn't have any brand name it does say Motor Sales and Service.

I suspect this was the showroom building and probably offices, whereas the other building was the actual workshop bit, or alternatively once they were succesful they moved into the larger grand premisis from the humble original building.

Either way Austin Motors was part of Cossens and Black

Cossens and Black Limited were a firm of engineers and iron and brass founders established in Dunedin by Thomas Cossens and Alexander Black in 1874. The firm was incorporated in 1899 and operated in increasingly expanded premises facing Crawford and Jervois streets. It eventually employed over 100 staff. They manufactured and sold farm machinery, drain-pipes, brick-making machinery, windmills, and Howard reapers. Later they built mining plants, dredges and dredge equipment.

In 1916 Cossens and Black entered the retail motor trade by securing the agency for Dodge motor cars. Later they ran Austin Motors (Otago) Ltd. After the Second World War the company imported Austin and other British Motor Corporation cars, Studebakers, and commerical vehicles. John Black (the son of Thomas) retired as managing director in 1969. The motor vehicle assets were sold to the New Zealand Motor Corporation Ltd and the engineering equipment to Fulton Hogan Ltd.
Cossens and Black moved into marine equipment and became chart agents. The company closed in 2003 (from 'Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago and Southland Biography')

When I took these photo's I thought the building was about to be demolished, fortunately it turns out they were just putting on a new roof.

S McCracken Coal and Produce Merchant

This is Main South Road Caversham, Dunedin

The previous premise of Mr Samuel McCracken Coal and Produce Merchant.

All I have been able to glean is that he was an Irish imigrant and lived next door to the shop.

Presumably this was the produce shop as I can't see people popping in for a bag of coal, I assume like today it was delivered to you.

Here is a historic view of the same shop "borrowed" from here
http://caversham.otago.ac.nz/resource/place/develops.html

Crown Roller Mills

This is Manor Place, Dunedin

With 1890 displayed at the top of the building this fantastic brick structure has been with us for a while. No longer a working mill it has been converted into apartments on the upper floors and a restaraunt / bar on the ground level.

This much less impressive building is the office next door to the mill. No prizes for guessing how I knew that.

The Crown Roller Mills company was founded in Timaru where it operated the Atlas Roller Flour Mills.
Originally built in 1867 using bricks and Oamaru stone and fitted with Anderson and Mouat's steam flour mill.
It was extended in 1890 (the date on the top of the building) by the addition of two additional floors to accomodate new steel roller mill technology.

Ownership changed over time until Goodman Fielder closed the production at the Mill in 1997, where mills ironically in Timaru took over production.

Frank Anderson Butcher

This is King Edward Street, Dunedin

The non blind amoung you will notice that there is no sign on this building but because of the below I felt it was worth adding to this blog

This is a very impressive window announcing the previous owner, I suspect, or presumably long term tennant to warrent this effort was Frank Anderson Butcher. Here are a couple of shots of each window.

When I had a look to see what I could find out about Frank I came across this from the Otago Witness from 17 June 1908, which has to be our man.

The other reference comes from http://www.fighttimes.com/magazine/magazine.asp?article=1086

When talking about Ray Meining a wrestler of note they say

"Ray first begun wrestling in 1934 when a fellow South Dunedin butcher friend of his fathers named Frank Anderson got him started at his wrestling school.

Frank was a good coach who ran the Frank Anderson Wrestling School originally in Melbourne street south Dunedin and then under the grandstand at the Caledonian grounds."

So Butcher and Wrestling Coach but I guess that didn't fit on the window.