13 April Robyn Warren - Warren's Bakery
Robyn Warren is the Landmarks History Group speaker for April 2009, and together with her husband Malcolm, they are fourth generation owners of Warren’s Bakery.
Warren’s Bakery was established in Havelock North in 1891 by Robert Warren after he served an apprenticeship with a Napier baker for five years. The original bakehouse and store was next to the old wooden St Columba’s Church in Napier Road.
The business expanded into Hastings in 1898, where his bakehouse was on the corner of St Aubyn Street and Karamu Road. Further expansion occurred at several other locations in the town with tearooms and shops. Robert also catered at the Hastings racecourse, and at weddings ─ where his large multi-tiered cakes were the talk of the town.
A pet monkey was brought back from overseas by Robert, and Jacko the monkey and Robert were a familiar, if not slightly eccentric sight around Hastings. Robyn is passionate about the history of Warren’s Bakery, and being New Zealand’s oldest bakery still owned by the same family, there are plenty of interesting stories to tell that have been passed down through the generations.
When: Tuesday, 13 AprilTime: 5.30pm - 6.30pmWhere: Hastings Public Library, Warren Street.
Gold coin donation please upon entry.
For more information please phone Michael Fowler on 027 4521 056
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Hamilton Logan – Richmond Meats
William Richmond was born at Campbeltown, Argyllshire, Scotland, on 8 August 1869, the son of Thomas Orr Richmond, a farmer, and his wife, Catherine (Kate) Stewart. William left school at the age of 13 and emigrated four years later to New Zealand, working his passage on a sailing ship. He was a rabbiter at Benmore station in North Otago, and later worked his way to Hawke's Bay. William Nelson, the founder of Tomoana Freezing Works in Hastings, offered him a job in 1892 at Chesterhope, a training farm. He became assistant manager in the late 1890s. At Wellington on 9 July 1894 he married Janet Greenlees Mitchell; they were to have a son and two daughters, one of whom died in infancy.
About 1900 Nelson greatly expanded his meat operations and asked Richmond to purchase 300,000 sheep in one season. Nelson offered him £3,000 if he succeeded, and no pay at all if he failed; Richmond succeeded. He sailed to Britain about 1901 to investigate the British meat market, particularly Smithfield. He thought that Nelson was delivering too much prime meat and that the market for seconds was inadequately supplied. Nelson turned a deaf ear, so Richmond ught all the seconds and exported them on his own account, with more than handsome results. From then till 1909 he organised the stock acquisition for Tomoana.
William Richmond travelled on horseback all over Hawke's Bay to select stock. Much of the travel was overnight, to leave more time for stock work. Farmers on his route would often provide him with horses for the next move, to be returned on his way back. Later, he tried motorcycles, but soon turned to cars, having one of the first in Hawke's Bay - a Wolseley. He was reputed to have made the first crossing of the new Wairoa bridge, and to have been promptly charged with exceeding the speed limit of four miles per hour.
In May 1909 Nelson handed all stock and meat trading over to Richmond, and Tomoana became solely a killing and with others, including properties in north Taranaki, northern Hawke's Bay and Reporoa in the central North Island.flats between Napier and Hastings.
Richmond struck financial disaster in 1922; he had purchased hundreds of thousands of stock at an average of 21shillings per head, but after killing and shipping costs they realised less than seven shillings on the London market. He laughingly held lotteries among the office staff on the next day's figure. Richmond was insolvent, but help camegoodwill of farmer clients and business interests.
The company of W. Richmond Limited was formed in 1930 with Richmond as chairman and managing director. Before the Second World War, friction developed between Richmond and many directors over his generosity to farmers, price of stock as an advance. This was seen as contrary to shareholders' interests as Richmond had guaranteed at least the scheduled price as a return.
The problem was temporarily solved by government bulk purchasing during the war, but in 1946 the government stopped buying pelts and wool (meat followed in 1954), and Richmond reintroduced the system of owners' account. Some shareholders saw the advance as a loan, and in 1951 this led to an attempt to sell the business. The affair ended when a large shareholder and friend of Richmond bought out all the dissenters. Richmond, then 81, stood down as chairman but continued to be involved with the company until his death.
Janet Richmond had died in 1916. On 8 July 1918 at Hastings Richmond married Catherine Mary Wilson, who had worked for him as an accountant; they had two sons and a daughter. Catherine gained fame in November 1929 as the North Island's first woman pilot. She died in August 1941, and on 21 November 1942, Richmond married Constance Maurice White (née Mason) at Hastings. He died at Hastings on 23 August 1956; he was survived by his third wife, a daughter from his first marriage and two daughters and a son from his second marriage.
William Richmond neither smoked nor drank. He was, however, keen on betting, and owned racehorses, winning the 1918 New Zealand Grand National Steeplechase with St Elmn. His unerring judgement of stock, together with his drive and business acumen, made him one of the most significant figures in the Hawke's Bay meat industry.
Richmond Meats began trading in 1930, and the company and its founder suffered mixed fortunes in the early years of trading.
In the 1970's more of Richmond meats fell into foreign ownership, but Ceo and business structure itself remained the same. Until the 1980’s, the meat industry was dominated by overseas (largely British) owned companies, renowned for their rigidity, inefficiency, appalling industrial relations, and inept or non-existent marketing focussed on the U.K. It is now largely (though not entirely as will be seen) locally owned, and considerably more efficient, with diversified markets. This has been at the expense of jobs and working conditions: deunionisation, shift work and automation are now common, but that is to some extent balanced with proportionally less casualisation and more permanent staff. The industry has been restructured by the localisation of ownership rather than its overseas takeover.
Richmond pottered along profitably for that decade following one of the big industry rationalisations that were a feature of the 1980s. Richmond purchased Dawn Meat and Pacific Freezing and participated in the closure of Whakatu and the purchase of Takapau from Hawke’s Bay Farmers Meat Co, all during an eventful 1986.Faced with two pivotal decisions in the early 1990s, Richmond declined to get involved with the divestment of Waitaki to Affco and Alliance and a possible purchase of cash-strapped Weddel. Loughlin says Richmond was wise “because it would have been buying the wrong set of assets and be headed for disaster”. These decisions were before his time at Richmond, which began in 1993 as finance manager for the company, after earlier periods as an investment banker and chartered accountant.However, given the acquisitive nature of the times, those decisions could have condemned Richmond to a regional backwater of the rapidly coagulating meat industry or, worse still, a takeover target.Richmond’s big chance came in an offer to sell out of beef and lamb processing by Hawke’s Bay neighbour Graeme Lowe, of Lowe Walker, also strongly positioned in Northland and Taranaki, where Richmond did not operate.The $27-million purchase, completed in March 1998, quadrupled beef processing and focused Loughlin’s new Richmond team on making a success of the large takeover, after opportunities for due diligence had been limited.A subsequent rationalisation of beef facilities closed Lowe Walker Hastings, converted Te Kauwhata to deer and then closed Otaki early in 1999.“It took out 17 percent of our beef fixed costs while maintaining throughput at Dargaville, Te Aroha, Hawera and Hastings,” says Loughlin.“Our investment adviser said he had never seen such a complementary fit of facilities, which gave Richmond the benefits of great synergies.”A second round of lamb-processing facility rationalisation affected three plants in and around Napier/Hastings and one at Hawera while consolidating further processing in the $14-million new FoodTech plant on the Takapau site.“Again, this took out 15 percent of lamb-processing costs for a small slaughter capacity reduction coupled with a large further-processing improvement,” says Loughlin.Next up was the Waitotara Farmers Meat Company merger (in October 1999) which swapped money and shares for the lamb plants at Waitotara (northwest of Wanganui) and Tirau, southern Waikato. It added a million lambs a year throughput, which Loughlin says is disappointing considering the size of Waitotara before the merger, but the focus of this move was to strengthen its geographical position and “bank the synergies”.In a paper called “Pursuing a Food Company Vision through M&A” presented to the Institute of Directors seminar in Wellington on November 3, 2000, Loughlin commented that Waitotara brought $2 million in EBIT and $8 million in synergies.Candidly, Richmond was exhausted by the time of the Waitotara assimilation and missed some opportunities and disaffected Waitotara farmer-suppliers decamped to other meat companies.Likewise Richmond has not made all it could have from the purchase in July 1998 and subsequent development of the Gourmet Direct upmarket local supply business, now the flagship for Richmond in food service.“We have built a first-rate business more slowly than I would like,” he admits. Expansion-fatigue may also be indicated in his assessment of Richmond’s size presently as adequate for all that the company needs to do.Neither Loughlin nor, he believes, any members of the board set out deliberately to become the biggest meat company in New Zealand.“But there was a moment during long discussions about whether to acquire Lowe Walker, when one director said, ‘we had better consider where Richmond will be if we don’t buy Lowe Walker’.”The company has made three consecutive increases of more than $200 million a year in turnover, quickly taking it from number four in the industry by size to number one.Loughlin would far rather be known as the best meat company, not the biggest.“I aspire to be the best, both in terms of shareholder value and prices in the paddock. This is the double, if you like, and so far we are nowhere near where I want us to be.”A period of consolidation is dictated, taking out costs, raising efficiencies and developing new products.Richmond can never drop its risk management vigilance in such a low margin enterprise, he says.When earnings are as low as one to two percent of sales, a few wrong supply or sales contracting decisions can wipe out profit and a number of them can wipe out the company’s $120-million capital base. This has been a sadly recurring pattern in the meat industry. John Loughlin’s second year as Richmond CEO was the beginning of the distracting noises, as PPCS contended with Affco for control of one-third of Richmond being tendered by the Meat Board.When both were rebuffed, the shares went to the supposed Richmond-friendly investor grouping of HKM; three Maori business people.Not deterred, PPCS wooed HKM and in 1999 was again on the brink of control when Richmond’s farmer-shareholders successfully challenged the PPCS processes and repulsed the raider.A company called Active Equities, owned by Paul Collins and Bruce Hancox, rode to the rescue of Richmond, but that horse has also turned Trojan.Third time-lucky in 2000, PPCS purchased 16.7 percent of Richmond shares (10 percent from Auckland farmer-businessman Peter Spencer) and paid $3.65 a share for 49 percent of Hawke’s Bay Meat Holdings, a joint venture with Active Equities to own 35.8 percent of Richmond’s 41 million shares. Should it exercise the right to purchase the remaining 51 percent of HBMH between February and September 2003, PPCS will then own 52.5 percent of Richmond.
Perversely, yet another measure of the Richmond success to date has been the persistence of PPCS in gaining control, although the outcome for Richmond is as yet uncertain. PPCS presumably had an opportunity to block Loughlin’s nomination to the board of directors (before the annual general meeting in December) but chose to endorse his promotion in the expectation of further earnings growth. Capital structureWith two good years behind it and one good year in prospect, Richmond directors finally decided to seek a main board listing on the Stock Exchange last February, along with a $50-million capital notes issue.“Since the 1980s there had been a lot of debate as to whether listing was consistent with long-term farmer ownership,” says Loughlin.“I had always maintained it was, in that ‘value’ is a measure of future earnings, in other words sustainability, which cannot be gained at the expense of farmers.“Without farmers and without their stock coming through, any meat company only has a lot of assets in obscure places with redundancy obligations attached.“So we have to ensure returns are sufficient to sustain both the farming community and to reinvest in the business.“For a long time no-one was winning, with farmers and companies scrapping over the crumbs of the cake,” he says.The listing eliminated the secondary market discount (of 25 to 30 percent) by making the market for shares more liquid. Many among 1900 smaller (mostly farmer) shareholders have benefited, and PPCS fronted up with cash to Spencer, Collins and Hancox pushing the share price to $3 briefly before settling down around $2.60.The money raised from the sale of capital notes has retired bank debt and provided funds for further re-quipping, just completed at Oringi, Te Kauwhata and Pacific Beef (Hastings).While they are an expensive substitute for bank funding, capital notes strengthen the balance sheet and may help to secure the company against prolonged downturns.
About 1900 Nelson greatly expanded his meat operations and asked Richmond to purchase 300,000 sheep in one season. Nelson offered him £3,000 if he succeeded, and no pay at all if he failed; Richmond succeeded. He sailed to Britain about 1901 to investigate the British meat market, particularly Smithfield. He thought that Nelson was delivering too much prime meat and that the market for seconds was inadequately supplied. Nelson turned a deaf ear, so Richmond ught all the seconds and exported them on his own account, with more than handsome results. From then till 1909 he organised the stock acquisition for Tomoana.
William Richmond travelled on horseback all over Hawke's Bay to select stock. Much of the travel was overnight, to leave more time for stock work. Farmers on his route would often provide him with horses for the next move, to be returned on his way back. Later, he tried motorcycles, but soon turned to cars, having one of the first in Hawke's Bay - a Wolseley. He was reputed to have made the first crossing of the new Wairoa bridge, and to have been promptly charged with exceeding the speed limit of four miles per hour.
In May 1909 Nelson handed all stock and meat trading over to Richmond, and Tomoana became solely a killing and with others, including properties in north Taranaki, northern Hawke's Bay and Reporoa in the central North Island.flats between Napier and Hastings.
Richmond struck financial disaster in 1922; he had purchased hundreds of thousands of stock at an average of 21shillings per head, but after killing and shipping costs they realised less than seven shillings on the London market. He laughingly held lotteries among the office staff on the next day's figure. Richmond was insolvent, but help camegoodwill of farmer clients and business interests.
The company of W. Richmond Limited was formed in 1930 with Richmond as chairman and managing director. Before the Second World War, friction developed between Richmond and many directors over his generosity to farmers, price of stock as an advance. This was seen as contrary to shareholders' interests as Richmond had guaranteed at least the scheduled price as a return.
The problem was temporarily solved by government bulk purchasing during the war, but in 1946 the government stopped buying pelts and wool (meat followed in 1954), and Richmond reintroduced the system of owners' account. Some shareholders saw the advance as a loan, and in 1951 this led to an attempt to sell the business. The affair ended when a large shareholder and friend of Richmond bought out all the dissenters. Richmond, then 81, stood down as chairman but continued to be involved with the company until his death.
Janet Richmond had died in 1916. On 8 July 1918 at Hastings Richmond married Catherine Mary Wilson, who had worked for him as an accountant; they had two sons and a daughter. Catherine gained fame in November 1929 as the North Island's first woman pilot. She died in August 1941, and on 21 November 1942, Richmond married Constance Maurice White (née Mason) at Hastings. He died at Hastings on 23 August 1956; he was survived by his third wife, a daughter from his first marriage and two daughters and a son from his second marriage.
William Richmond neither smoked nor drank. He was, however, keen on betting, and owned racehorses, winning the 1918 New Zealand Grand National Steeplechase with St Elmn. His unerring judgement of stock, together with his drive and business acumen, made him one of the most significant figures in the Hawke's Bay meat industry.
Richmond Meats began trading in 1930, and the company and its founder suffered mixed fortunes in the early years of trading.
In the 1970's more of Richmond meats fell into foreign ownership, but Ceo and business structure itself remained the same. Until the 1980’s, the meat industry was dominated by overseas (largely British) owned companies, renowned for their rigidity, inefficiency, appalling industrial relations, and inept or non-existent marketing focussed on the U.K. It is now largely (though not entirely as will be seen) locally owned, and considerably more efficient, with diversified markets. This has been at the expense of jobs and working conditions: deunionisation, shift work and automation are now common, but that is to some extent balanced with proportionally less casualisation and more permanent staff. The industry has been restructured by the localisation of ownership rather than its overseas takeover.
Richmond pottered along profitably for that decade following one of the big industry rationalisations that were a feature of the 1980s. Richmond purchased Dawn Meat and Pacific Freezing and participated in the closure of Whakatu and the purchase of Takapau from Hawke’s Bay Farmers Meat Co, all during an eventful 1986.Faced with two pivotal decisions in the early 1990s, Richmond declined to get involved with the divestment of Waitaki to Affco and Alliance and a possible purchase of cash-strapped Weddel. Loughlin says Richmond was wise “because it would have been buying the wrong set of assets and be headed for disaster”. These decisions were before his time at Richmond, which began in 1993 as finance manager for the company, after earlier periods as an investment banker and chartered accountant.However, given the acquisitive nature of the times, those decisions could have condemned Richmond to a regional backwater of the rapidly coagulating meat industry or, worse still, a takeover target.Richmond’s big chance came in an offer to sell out of beef and lamb processing by Hawke’s Bay neighbour Graeme Lowe, of Lowe Walker, also strongly positioned in Northland and Taranaki, where Richmond did not operate.The $27-million purchase, completed in March 1998, quadrupled beef processing and focused Loughlin’s new Richmond team on making a success of the large takeover, after opportunities for due diligence had been limited.A subsequent rationalisation of beef facilities closed Lowe Walker Hastings, converted Te Kauwhata to deer and then closed Otaki early in 1999.“It took out 17 percent of our beef fixed costs while maintaining throughput at Dargaville, Te Aroha, Hawera and Hastings,” says Loughlin.“Our investment adviser said he had never seen such a complementary fit of facilities, which gave Richmond the benefits of great synergies.”A second round of lamb-processing facility rationalisation affected three plants in and around Napier/Hastings and one at Hawera while consolidating further processing in the $14-million new FoodTech plant on the Takapau site.“Again, this took out 15 percent of lamb-processing costs for a small slaughter capacity reduction coupled with a large further-processing improvement,” says Loughlin.Next up was the Waitotara Farmers Meat Company merger (in October 1999) which swapped money and shares for the lamb plants at Waitotara (northwest of Wanganui) and Tirau, southern Waikato. It added a million lambs a year throughput, which Loughlin says is disappointing considering the size of Waitotara before the merger, but the focus of this move was to strengthen its geographical position and “bank the synergies”.In a paper called “Pursuing a Food Company Vision through M&A” presented to the Institute of Directors seminar in Wellington on November 3, 2000, Loughlin commented that Waitotara brought $2 million in EBIT and $8 million in synergies.Candidly, Richmond was exhausted by the time of the Waitotara assimilation and missed some opportunities and disaffected Waitotara farmer-suppliers decamped to other meat companies.Likewise Richmond has not made all it could have from the purchase in July 1998 and subsequent development of the Gourmet Direct upmarket local supply business, now the flagship for Richmond in food service.“We have built a first-rate business more slowly than I would like,” he admits. Expansion-fatigue may also be indicated in his assessment of Richmond’s size presently as adequate for all that the company needs to do.Neither Loughlin nor, he believes, any members of the board set out deliberately to become the biggest meat company in New Zealand.“But there was a moment during long discussions about whether to acquire Lowe Walker, when one director said, ‘we had better consider where Richmond will be if we don’t buy Lowe Walker’.”The company has made three consecutive increases of more than $200 million a year in turnover, quickly taking it from number four in the industry by size to number one.Loughlin would far rather be known as the best meat company, not the biggest.“I aspire to be the best, both in terms of shareholder value and prices in the paddock. This is the double, if you like, and so far we are nowhere near where I want us to be.”A period of consolidation is dictated, taking out costs, raising efficiencies and developing new products.Richmond can never drop its risk management vigilance in such a low margin enterprise, he says.When earnings are as low as one to two percent of sales, a few wrong supply or sales contracting decisions can wipe out profit and a number of them can wipe out the company’s $120-million capital base. This has been a sadly recurring pattern in the meat industry. John Loughlin’s second year as Richmond CEO was the beginning of the distracting noises, as PPCS contended with Affco for control of one-third of Richmond being tendered by the Meat Board.When both were rebuffed, the shares went to the supposed Richmond-friendly investor grouping of HKM; three Maori business people.Not deterred, PPCS wooed HKM and in 1999 was again on the brink of control when Richmond’s farmer-shareholders successfully challenged the PPCS processes and repulsed the raider.A company called Active Equities, owned by Paul Collins and Bruce Hancox, rode to the rescue of Richmond, but that horse has also turned Trojan.Third time-lucky in 2000, PPCS purchased 16.7 percent of Richmond shares (10 percent from Auckland farmer-businessman Peter Spencer) and paid $3.65 a share for 49 percent of Hawke’s Bay Meat Holdings, a joint venture with Active Equities to own 35.8 percent of Richmond’s 41 million shares. Should it exercise the right to purchase the remaining 51 percent of HBMH between February and September 2003, PPCS will then own 52.5 percent of Richmond.
Perversely, yet another measure of the Richmond success to date has been the persistence of PPCS in gaining control, although the outcome for Richmond is as yet uncertain. PPCS presumably had an opportunity to block Loughlin’s nomination to the board of directors (before the annual general meeting in December) but chose to endorse his promotion in the expectation of further earnings growth. Capital structureWith two good years behind it and one good year in prospect, Richmond directors finally decided to seek a main board listing on the Stock Exchange last February, along with a $50-million capital notes issue.“Since the 1980s there had been a lot of debate as to whether listing was consistent with long-term farmer ownership,” says Loughlin.“I had always maintained it was, in that ‘value’ is a measure of future earnings, in other words sustainability, which cannot be gained at the expense of farmers.“Without farmers and without their stock coming through, any meat company only has a lot of assets in obscure places with redundancy obligations attached.“So we have to ensure returns are sufficient to sustain both the farming community and to reinvest in the business.“For a long time no-one was winning, with farmers and companies scrapping over the crumbs of the cake,” he says.The listing eliminated the secondary market discount (of 25 to 30 percent) by making the market for shares more liquid. Many among 1900 smaller (mostly farmer) shareholders have benefited, and PPCS fronted up with cash to Spencer, Collins and Hancox pushing the share price to $3 briefly before settling down around $2.60.The money raised from the sale of capital notes has retired bank debt and provided funds for further re-quipping, just completed at Oringi, Te Kauwhata and Pacific Beef (Hastings).While they are an expensive substitute for bank funding, capital notes strengthen the balance sheet and may help to secure the company against prolonged downturns.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Hamilton Logan – Richmond Meats
9 March Hamilton Logan – Richmond Meats
Hamilton Logan, past chairman of Richmond Meats will talk on the history of Richmond Meats, and founder W Richmond.
Richmond Meats began trading in 1930, and the company and its founder suffered mixed fortunes in the early years of trading.
Landmarks spokesperson Michael Fowler said “This company’s history is fascinating; from the charismatic owner to the takeover attempts by Brierley Investments, mergers and finally the intense struggle that led to the end of Richmond Meats as it was known in 2005”.
“Hamilton Logan will recount these stories with personal anecdotes, including meeting with past Prime Minister Robert Muldoon to de-licence the meat industry in the 1970s.”
Hamilton Logan, past chairman of Richmond Meats will talk on the history of Richmond Meats, and founder W Richmond.
Richmond Meats began trading in 1930, and the company and its founder suffered mixed fortunes in the early years of trading.
Landmarks spokesperson Michael Fowler said “This company’s history is fascinating; from the charismatic owner to the takeover attempts by Brierley Investments, mergers and finally the intense struggle that led to the end of Richmond Meats as it was known in 2005”.
“Hamilton Logan will recount these stories with personal anecdotes, including meeting with past Prime Minister Robert Muldoon to de-licence the meat industry in the 1970s.”
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Rohan Luttrell - The Carlton Hotel
The Carlton Club Hotel, (J. D. Rivers, properietor), corner of Heretunga Street and Karamu Road, Hastings. The Carlton Club Hotel is one of the finest and best known hostelries in the province of Hawke's Bay. It is built on modern principles, with the view of obtaining the greatest amount of comfort, convenience, and sanitary efficiency. The ground floor is approached from either thoroughiare, and contains a commodious commercial room, comfortably furnished with writing tables, and every convenience for the transaction of business: a large, handsome, and 
well-appointed dining room (a most popular place for luncheon), capable of seating eighty guests; a first-class billiard room, fitted with one of Burroughs and Watts prize tables; a number of comfortable card rooms and sitting rooms; public and private bars, supplied with choice wines, liquors, and cigars, for which the Carlton Club Hotel has maintained a good reputation; an efficient office, fitted with a large safe for the convenience of guests; a lavatory, with hot and cold water service; and the quarters of the Heretaunga Club. The latter are luxuriously furnished, and include a billiard room, a reading room, a writing room, a sitting room, and a club room. At the rear of the building there is a large and well-appointed kitchen, a scullery, a storeroom, a laundry, and offices. A number of sample rooms, conveniently fitted up, adjoin the hotel. The upstarirs portion of the house is reached by a fine staircase, and is devoted to bedrooms and private sitting rooms, which are furnished with the greatest luxury and good taste. There is also a handsome drawing room, and a travellers' writing room. Numerous bathrooms and lavatories for ladies and gentlemen respectively, are conveniently placed throuhout the building, and every precaution has been taken for escape in case of fire. The hotel is lighted all through with incandescent gas light, the main entrances are fitted with large incandescent are lamps, and the rooms are supplied with electric bells. The corridors are wide, and furnished with excellent taste. The office is connected by telephone with Napier, and the reading rooms are supplied with all the leading Australasian weekly and daily papers, and the latest directories. The cuisine of the “Carlton Club” is excellent, and the services of a first-class chef, with a number of assistants, have been retained by the proprietor. The hotel is one of the most popular places of resort in Hastings, and is largely patronised by tourists, commercial men, and the travelling public. It is the meeting place of the Hastings Farmers' Union, the Hastings Golf Club, and the local volunteer corps. Mr. J. D. Rivers is ably assisted in the domestic management by Mrs. Rivers, and both host and hostess co-operate in making things pleasnt and satisfactory for all who are visitors or guests at the Carlton Club Hotel.Mr. J. D. Rivers, the popular proprietor of the Carlton Club Hotel, was born in Wellington on the 5th of June, 1864. He was educated at the Thorndon public school, under Mr. Mowhray, and was afterwards employed for about five years by Mr. McKenzie, as a drover in the Manawatu district. Mr. Rivers subsequently gained considerable experience in the fellmongery trade in Wellington, Hawke's Bay, and Gisborne, and was then employed as barman by Mr. Jull, at Hastings. Five years later he took up a similar position in the Albert Hotel, Hastings, which hotel he afterwards acquired, and conducted on his own account. He then disposed of this house, and took over the Carlton Club Hotel, which he has since successfully conducted. Mr. Rivers is married and has one son and two daughters. He is further referred to as Quarter-master Sergeant of the Hawke's Bay Mounted Rifles.
Rohan Luttrell is the first speaker for the Landmarks History Group for 2010, and he will give a history of the Carlton Club Hotel (now the site of Breakers on the corner of Karamu and Heretaunga Streets).The Carlton Club Hotel was built in 1882, and survived the 1931 earthquake because of its wooden construction. The Luttrell family took ownership in 1933 and the hotel was kept in the family until the building was demolished circa 1970 to make way for the present building, now occupied by Breakers.
Rohan Luttrell lived in the Carlton Hotel as a child and witnessed some of the unusual goings on that occurred. These include the antics of a touring French Rugby team staying at the hotel and the 1950s Blossom Festival riot in Hastings, which started in the Albert Hotel across the road.
The talk promises to be entertaining and informative, with Rohan recalling his memories of growing up in the hotel in Hastings.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Rohan Luttrell - The Carlton Hotel
Rohan Luttrell is the first speaker for the Landmarks History Group for 2010, and he will give a history of the Carlton Club Hotel Later becoming teh Cobb & Co Restaurant. (now the site of Breakers on the corner of Karamu and Heretaunga Streets).
The Carlton Club Hotel was built in 1882, and survived the 1931 earthquake because of its wooden construction. The Luttrell family took ownership in 1933 and the hotel was kept in the family until the building was demolished circa 1970 to make way for the present building, now occupied by Breakers.
Rohan Luttrell lived in the Carlton Hotel as a child and witnessed some of the unusual goings on that occurred. These include the antics of a touring French Rugby team staying at the hotel and the 1950s Blossom Festival riot in Hastings, which started in the Albert Hotel across the road.
The talk promises to be entertaining and informative, with Rohan recalling his memories of growing up in the hotel in Hastings.
The Carlton Club Hotel was built in 1882, and survived the 1931 earthquake because of its wooden construction. The Luttrell family took ownership in 1933 and the hotel was kept in the family until the building was demolished circa 1970 to make way for the present building, now occupied by Breakers.
Rohan Luttrell lived in the Carlton Hotel as a child and witnessed some of the unusual goings on that occurred. These include the antics of a touring French Rugby team staying at the hotel and the 1950s Blossom Festival riot in Hastings, which started in the Albert Hotel across the road.
The talk promises to be entertaining and informative, with Rohan recalling his memories of growing up in the hotel in Hastings.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
History of Hawke's Bay Car Club - Lily Baker
Lily Baker spoke about he history of the HB Car Club and the book she has compiled on the history of the club.
"Off the Record"
1947 – 1997
A commemoration of 50 years Hawke’s Bay (sports) Car Club
This book is 360 A4 pages, stitched binding, hard cover with coloured jacket cover.
The fifty years history story of the Club has been written by several Members and covers many aspects of motor-sport in Hawke's Bay.
Each chapter is illustrated with many black & white photographs pertaining to the event and period covered.
Special price $20.00 incl. GST (plus postage).
Free Hawkes Bay Car Club Sticker with every book purchased.
Since the Club's first meeting in May 1947, the club has been a family orientated entity that encourage families and individuals to indulge in the motorsport environment from the entry level through to the pinnacle of motorsport overseas.
We are extremely proud that we can count amongst our associate members, two of NZ's most successful V8 Supercar Drivers in Greg Murphy (Murph) and Johnny McIntyre. To find out how you can enter the motorsport environment at a budget level that suits you, then visit ou
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Angus Gordon Part II
The woolshed - This is a live farming show performed in and around the historic Clifton Station Woolshed. The station of 13,500 acres was bought in 1859 by James Gillespie Gordon. The station now 2000 acres (800 hectares) is owned by Angus and Dinah Gordon, whose children are the 6th generation of Gordons to live at Clifton.
The woolshed itself was built in 1886 by Frank Gordon, the owner’s grandfather. It was originally a twenty-stand blade shearing shed, which was converted to a 12 stand machine shearing shed in 1904. It is now an 8 stand shed, with a night pen carrying capacity of 1000 sheep. In 1
912, Frank Gordon replaced most of the roofing timber inside the shed with Oregon timber, and in 1960, John Gordon, Angus’ father re-piled the whole shed with concrete piles.In 2002 a new shed was built further in on the property allowing this shed to be converted into a museum. It is still used to shear all the sheep on the Clifton Flats and surrounds. In 2006, Angus and Dinah Gordon formed a partnership with Ian and Wendy Richardson called Wool World @ Clifton Station to provide a venue for a live farm show, convention centre, museum and wool retail shop.
CLIFTON BAY CAFE
Work began on the building of Clifton Cafe in November 1998. The cafe was complete in Ma 1999 and it opened for business on teh 28th July on a freezing cold day with snow glistening from teh Kawekas.
If it’s the ambience of the sea and the cliffs of Cape Kidnappers, spacious views across the Bay, good company, happy service and a wide variety of well priced delicious food and Hawke's Bay wines that you’re dreaming of, then Clifton Bay Licensed Cafe and Function Centre is the reality. If it’s a well organised atmospheric wedding or party catering for up to 150 people seated you’re looking for you need look no further than Clifton Bay By The Sea for the complete package. Whatever you desire, we will endeavour to deliver a memory you will never forget.
If it’s the ambience of the sea and the cliffs of Cape Kidnappers, spacious views across the Bay, good company, happy service and a wide variety of well priced delicious food and Hawke's Bay wines that you’re dreaming of, then Clifton Bay Licensed Cafe and Function Centre is the reality. If it’s a well organised atmospheric wedding or party catering for up to 150 people seated you’re looking for you need look no further than Clifton Bay By The Sea for the complete package. Whatever you desire, we will endeavour to deliver a memory you will never forget.
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