Reid & Gray of Dunedin NZ
Reid & Gray #4 multi ended cast iron spanner © Ozwrenches
Table of Contents
Introduction
Reid & Gray
This large business was originally founded in Oamaru in 1868. Five years later the firm removed to Dunedin, as there was not sufficient scope in Oamaru for the development of its rapidly expanding trade. It has a large section of land extending between the two streets above named, on which a fine four storey warehouse facing Crawford Street was erected in the year 1880. This building contains the counting house of the firm, and is used as a store for the materials required in the manufacture of agricultural implements. The site occupied has a frontage of 196 feet, and almost the entire area between the two streets is covered with buildings. The smithy works occupy a building 140 feet by fifty feet, and there are twenty-three blacksmiths' forges and four furnaces, all of which are kept steadily going. As manufacturers of double-furrow ploughs, Messrs. Reid and Gray have already turned out over 13,000 of these needful implements. In the fitting-shop there are a number of splendid machines, including multiple drills, one of which bores ten holes in one operation; a milling machine, which cuts grooves in shafts and the teeth of wheels; machines for bolt-screwing, iron-planing, double emery grinding machines; besides a large number of the most recent appliances for fulfilling the various requirements connected with their operations. The machinery in the fitting-shop is driven by a twelve horsepower horizontal engine manufactured by the firm, steam being supplied by three Cornish boilers. The carpenters' shop is a two storey building with a loft supported from the roof, and measures 180 feet by fifty-six feet. The appliances in this department are of the most complete description, the whole of the wood-work required in connection with the various machines turned out from the factory being made in this building, where a special engine of twelve horsepower is used. The moulding shop is perhaps the most important of the various departments of the firm's premises. Messrs. Reid and Gray manufacture cast chilled shares, of which about a hundred tons in weight are turned out every year. The operation of casting these and the large number of other castings necessary in connection with the establishment, is a very interesting one. Messrs. Reid and Gray's works find constant employment for about two hundred operatives. The manufactured articles turned out by the firm find a ready market not only in all parts of New Zealand, but throughout the Australasian Colonies; and Reid and Gray ploughs have been sent as far failed as Scotland and Buenos Ayres. Messrs Reid and Gray also manufacture zigzag and disc harrows, turnip and manure drills, broadcast seed-sowers, rotary harrows, cultivators, strippers, drays, chaffers and baggers with automatic screw-press, and many other implements too numerous to mention. In addition to its large manufacturing trade, the firm is sole agent in New Zealand for the Deering Pony Binder, Clayton and Shuttleworth's threshing mills. Burrell's traction engines, and the Rudge-Whitworth. Stearn's Yellow-fellow, and Barnes' White-flyer bicycles. Some idea of the extent of the firm's manufacturing operations may be gleaned from the fact that its factory consumes 1,200 tons of Kaitangata coal every year, in addition to 800 tons of smithy coal. Upwards of 400 tons of bar-iron is usually kept stocked in racks, in addition to some 100 tons of standard-iron, while the stock of pig-iron is usually from 200 to 300 tons. Messrs. Reid and Gray having extended their business in the north and south of New Zealand, found it necessary to establish working branches in the other important centres of the Colony; namely, at Oamaru, Timaru, Ashburton, Christchurch, Palmerston North, Auckland, Invercargill and Gore. They have fitted up in their Dunedin shops an electric installation, consisting of a compound dynamo, with are lamps of the latest pattern, supplied by Messrs Chambers and Son, Auckland.Ref's - "The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]".
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The R & G Building in Dunedin c 1880 © Ozwrenches
R & G # 3 multi ended spanner © Ozwrenches
R & G # 5 hammer spanner © Ozwrenches
R & G # 10 multi ended spanner © Ozwrenches
Reid & Gray Wire Mender - Strainer - Rare © Ozwrenches