Centuries of success

RESOURCED: Martin Pipe and Kay Pipe's Griffiths Shoes in Hastings has enjoyed more than a century of success.

Blurb: While companies go through boom-and-bust cycles, it is businesses with stability that enable the wider community to prosper.

Hawke's Bay Today Business Editor Patrick O'Sullivan has started surveying known Hawke's Bay businesses that are 100 years old or more.

MISSION ESTATE

Hawke's Bay's oldest winemakers recorded their first commercial sale in 1870.

The French Marist Mission arrived in Northland in 1851 and established a mission station at Pakowhai in 1851.

In 1851 they moved to Meeanee where vines were planted to produce both sacramental and table wine.

After suffering floods they purchased the 800-acre Mission Estate from the Tiffen family in 1897, planting grapes where the Mission Concert is staged and commuting from Meeanee to work the land.

In 1910 the community moved to its 800 acres bringing the Mission building with it. It took two days to transport its 11 sections by on logs pulled by traction engines.

Winemaking operations sat beside a seminary. On the second night of the new seminary block's opening the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake struck, killing two priests and seven students meditating in the stone chape.

A wooden chapel was built and still exists today.

By 1935 there were 80 students but in 1991 the seminary was based in Auckland.

Today wine is its main revenue earner but it is also a conference facility, hosts the Mission Concert and plans a residential development on land that is currently farmed and forested.

TE MATA ESTATE

Established in 1896, Te Mata Estate's vines were first planted in 1892.

It was originally part of Te Mata Station, a land-holding established in 1854 by John Chambers.

His third son Bernard had the idea to plant vineyards on the north-facing hills after a trip to France and began converting stables into the current winery/cellar door.

The Chambers family sold the property in 1919 and the property had two other owners until it was acquired by John Buck, with business partner Michael Morris, in 1974, and expanded the business steadily.

Today Te Mata has five sites on free draining, north-facing slopes.

On the outskirts of Havelock North, it is protected from urban creep due to the Hastings District Council's Te Mata Special Character Zone.

Today it is owned and operated by the Buck family, with John Bucks three sons - Toby, Nicholas and Jonathan - working in the business.

HOLLY BACON COMPANY

Holly Bacon Company in Hastings was founded in 1914 by German immigrant Carl Vogtherr.

The German immigrant started at Stortford Lodge with the Elite Bacon factory, petrol station, fruit cool store and ice factory. A delicatessen was opened in Heretaunga Street, near the Grand Hotel, on the day WWI broke out.

Patriotic residents stood in the street with rocks in hand, ready to throw them through the front window but were a local policeman diffused the situation.

Carl's son Ernest returned to Hastings in 1937 and established the Hastings Bacon Company in Karamu road next the Public Trust Office.

In 1962 the business moved to its current location on the corner of St Aubyn Street East and Warren Street.

Gordon Vogtherr joined his father (Ernest) in 1942 and 40 years later Gordon's daughter Claire joined the firm , which she now runs with the assistance of her daughters.

FL BONE

FL Bone was established in Hastings in 1885 and has been in the Bone family since 1890. Head office is still in Hastings and it has branches in Auckland and Newmarket.

It has gone from a high profile main-street business to a low-profile exporting wholesaler.

The Bone family started as general hardware merchants and gradually began specialising in wallpaper, paint, household utensils, basic hardware and a good hand tool trade.

In the early 1990s it specialised down to high quality door and window hardware and Rayburn stoves. In the late 1990s, Aga cookers were added, then Rangemaster/Falcon cookers.

In recent years it developed a heating division and a third division is high-end hardware.

CITY COLLISION REPAIRS

A century ago, CCR was called A Dykes and Sons and was primarily a coachbuilding and wheelwright (fixing wooden wheels) business.

It evolved with the motor vehicle by first building them, importing truck chassis, adding a motor and building the body.

As vehicles became more common, so did collisions and the business evolved in to panelbeating.

It had a staff of 15 when Roger Greaney bought it in 1979 from founder Andy Dykes after both Mr Dykes' sons died.

CCR started in Napier's Hastings St in 1916 before moving to Hyderabad Rd and then Onekawa in the early 1980s, across the road from its current site.

Six years ago it moved in to its current purpose-built building which Mr Greaney said was a game-changer. Previously cars were moved up to 20 times in the course of a major repair, today a car is rarely moved more than five times. The industry norm is each move takes seven minutes.

Mr Greaney's son, Chris, is manager, having started at age 18.

HECTOR JONES

Hector Jones Ltd. They have been trading in Hastings since 1914 and have been in business longer than most other sales and service shops of its type in New Zealand, with customers in both the trade and retail sectors.

It was initially an electrical appliance firm and diversified into power tools.

Founder Hector Jones aged 37 while overseas in 1930, and therefore did not see his building ruined by the Hawke's Bay Earthquake, in which two shop assistants died.

GRIFFITHS SHOES

Established in 1914, Griffiths Shoes was founded by Charlie Griffiths.

During and WWII import restrictions forced the business to stock more New Zealand-made shoes.

Mr Griffiths told his young shop assistant, Charlie Davis, he would have a job for life. He did, becoming the store's second owner and staying nearly fifty-five years.

An arson in 1989 burned the store down but Mr Davis rebuilt the business, bought in 2004 by Martin and Kay Pipe.

MCCLURG'S JEWELLERS

McClurgs Jewellers is Hawke's Bays oldest manufacturing jewellers.

It is operated by third-generation David McClurg, the third McClurg man to run the business since it was bought by his grandfather Leonard in 1913, then taken over by his father Allan in 1931.

Alan McClurg's timing could have been better - the building was completely destroyed in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, but was rebuilt.

Sadly all business records were lost.

Bespoke jewellery remains the mainstay of the business, which still operates in the rebuilt building on Hastings St in Napier.

WINLOVES

The company's been in the family for four generations since 1865 when carpenter George Winlove set up a carpentry business in Waipukurau.

By the late 1800s he was expanding the business and his capabilities, billing himself as George Winlove - Carpenter, Joiner, Builder and Undertaker.

His son John Winlove took over the business and was Waipukurau mayor from 1913 to 1919.

He expanded the business, opening a hardware shop, timber yard, concrete products manufacturing plant and plumbing workshop.

By 1924, he had opened a large shop in Waipukurau, selling anything from kitchenware to saddlery as well as building supplies. Not long afterwards, branches opened in Waipawa and Porangahau.

Trucking and transport, and brick and pipe manufacturing were other sidelines.
George (aged 21) and brother Harry (aged 17 and father to current owner George) took over the business from John after he died from pneumonia in 1930.

By 1939, the company had started dabbling in small appliances, and in 1950 moved to a smaller premises in the centre of town.

NIMON AND SON

William Beecroft established his passenger transportation service in Hastings about 1876 and moved it to Havelock North 20 years later.

Australian-born John Giles Nimon worked for WG Beecroft for 10 years before buying the horse-drawn business.

J Nimon and Sons operated horse-drawn buses and its first car, a seven-seater Studebaker, in 1910.

Studebakers steadily replaced horses and in 1915 the company acquired a 25-seater, built from a horse-drawn body mounted on a truck chassis.

The eldest of his six children, John Joseph (Joe) Nimon, who drove the horse-drawn buses as soon as he had left school, took over the business. When he and brother Bill were overseas in WWI the role fell on the teenaged shoulders of third brother Cecil.

Joe's grandson Bill runs the business today, which moved to Whakatu six years ago.

LANGELY TWIGG

The Napier law firm was established in 1864 when George Lee commenced practice in 1864, forming an eight year partnership in 1872 with Henry Cornford in 1872.

Lee specialised in criminal cases, defending Kereopa for the murder of Missionary Volkner.

Henry Cornford was appointed Crown Solicitor and his second son E. Cornford joined the firm on his return from the Boer War.

Henry Cornford died in 1923, when Victor Langley became a partner.

In 1939 Jock Twigg became a partner and the firm was known as Cornford Langley and Twigg.

George C Doole joined in 1939, adding his name to the firm.

Mr Langley's daughter Audrey Ricketts was the first woman admitted as a barrister in Hawke's Bay, joining the firm.

After several partnership changes the firm took its current name in 1989, moving from Raffles St to Ahuriri in 2006.

If you know of more firms that have passed the 100 year mark then please contact Patrick O'Sullivan. patrick.osullivan@hbtoday.co.nz