New Zealand - A 1964 Winstone Limited truck conveying an 1864 wagon to the company's Henderson depot as a preliminary to lodging the wagon as a gift to the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland. #603031 Winstone - Cartage and transportation was the core business of Winstone for many years. Initially, the firm won contracts to reclaim part of Auckland's waterfront and their horse-drawn carts were carrying spoil to form the main approaches to the town while staff cut down bluffs that jutted out into the harbour. Firewood, coal, spoil, gravel, furniture, sand-were all moved by the firm in large quantities. Progressively, the firm moved into quarrying. - Most of its coal, sand, shingle, stone and other materials came into Auckland by chartered vessels, or in the company's own fleet of scows. In 1905 Winstone Ltd acquired the schooner-rigged flat-bottomed scow Rangi; subsequently, the company bought six other scows between 1909 and 1917. Under the direction of Percy Winstone, it was beginning to update its land-based fleet from horse-drawn transport to motor vehicle. In 1914, Winstone purchased an additional property in Symonds Street as a garage - a far-sighted move at a time when motor transport was still relatively new and the company had 200 horses on the road every day (and another 40 resting). By 1924 it had built up a fleet of 24 motor vehicles as well as 250 horses. (Twenty years later, in 1945, the situation was reversed: there were 200 motor vehicles and only four horses remaining.) - By the 1920s, the firm was actively engaged in opening branch building supply yards providing of a wide variety of products the firm either manufactured or held the agencies for: Taumarunui roofing tiles, Silverstream mastertiles, Cafferata plasters, Kennedy cork, Everlastic and Korkoid floor tiles, imported Empire plaster wallboard and Wunderlich's Australian asbestos sheeting. - In 1930, it became sole shareholder in NZ Wallboards manufacturing Gibraltar board, and added to this by supplying plaster for the plant through subsidiary, Victor Plasters. Quarries were first commenced in Mt Eden in the 1870s and then progressively in the twentieth century additional quarries were opened in Three Kings (1920s) and Lunn Avenue, Mt Wellington (1936). As the third generation of descendents entered the firm in the post-war period, so began a period that marked a significant shift in Winstone's overall policy: a move from being principally suppliers of raw materials, such as graded metal and cement, to increasing the company's involvement in manufacturing. The company was particularly interested in producing building materials from the same local sources it was using to obtain raw materials - for example, it had been making masonry blocks at its Three Kings scoria depot in Mount Roskill, and in 1953 on the same site established a plant manufacturing Vibrapac blocks - the familiar concrete block still used extensively - out of Auckland scoria, Waikato River sand and Northland cement. It also began producing a coloured building material known as Roskill stone, which was used extensively in buildings of the time. Existing manufacturing operations were extended too. In 1946 a second gib board factory was established at Lower Hutt, and the next year Winstone Clay Products Ltd (previously Winstone's Roofing Tile Works Ltd), which ran the Taumarunui brick works, began manufacturing glazed colour tiles at a purpose-built plant at Plimmerton, just north of Wellington. - By 1970, Winstone Ltd had five major areas of operation: manufacturing, including gib board, ceramics (bricks and clay products) and plastics (such as PVC pipes and fittings); quarrying and sand; roading contractors and bitumen suppliers; building suppliers, and in concrete (ready-mix and masonry). It had added the valuable concrete business, Wilson's (N.Z.) Portland Cement Ltd, to its portfolio, buying 100 per cent of the company jointly with Golden Bay Cement Ltd. Winstone Ltd's competition was different across the country. It was strong in the north - from the Waikato to Northland - where it had huge quarries, extensive transport fleets, and controlled the supply of cement, plaster, concrete, concrete masonry, steel and many other major base building materials. The purchase of Dimond Industries Ltd in 1973, a company that specialised in the production of roll-formed steel products, added a further dimension to the company's range of building products. (http://www.businesshistory.auckland.ac.nz/winstones/key_products_and_services.html) The First Century: A Centenary Review of Winstone Limited - FOREWORD - A HUNDRED years may not seem long in the sense in which the scientist calculates the vast span of geological time; but in terms of the human history of a newly-occupied land a century takes on a new complex. In the story of New Zealand, for example, the past century marks the transition from a land of a few thousand people to a land of more than two millions; it marks, too, the change from ancient Polynesian stone-age civilisation and primitive colonial settlement to a modern civilisation based on European codes, traditions and standards of living. - The Winstone firm has lived through this transition period, and, by the nature of its activities, has had some small part to play in the many changes that have come about. It was in 1864, just a century ago, that young William Winstone set up business in what was then the small and struggling colonial port of Auckland. Five years later, in 1869, his brother George joined him in partnership, and in turn the partnership became in 1904 the present firm of Winstone Limited. - The directors of 1964 feel that, on this 100th anniversary of the year in which William Winstone first entered business in Auckland, it would be appropriate to publish a brief history of the firm and to indicate its part in the development of New Zealand. The task was entrusted to an Auckland journalist, Mr. Frank Simpson, M.A., F.R.G.S., to whom we are indebted for compiling and supervising the production of this present centennial historical survey. - ERIC G. WINSTONE, - Chairman of Directors, - Winstone Limited. - 1964 Author: Frank Simpson Click the link provided at the top to purchase the book through the MAD on New Zealand Shop - Supporting New Zealand Authors and Artists