Gear Meat Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Industry | Meat processing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1882 in Petone, New Zealand |
| Founder | James Gear |
| Defunct | 1981 |
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Gear Meat Company was a meat processing company with a large works that operated in Petone, New Zealand from 1874 until 1981 and was one of the major employers in Petone.
The company was founded by James Gear, a butcher born in England who had emigrated to Australia in 1857 and then to New Zealand around 1861.[1] From about 1865 Gear operated butcher's shops in Wellington,[2] and in 1873 he started a meat preserving plant in the city. In 1874 he built a slaughterhouse and processing plant on 30 acres of land near the waterfront in Petone.[3][4] The land included the Te Puni urupa (Māori cemetery) and some sections set aside as Native Reserve.[4]: 22 An 1897 map of the works shows the urupa encircled by a rail track and surrounded on three sides by meat works buildings.[4]: 27 The meat works is believed to be the first industry in the Hutt Valley,[4] with its importance reflected in its inclusion on Petone Borough's first coat of arms in 1884.[4][5]
By the end of 1881 the plant at Petone employed over 100 men who boarded on the premises. At that time the plant was slaughtering 3400 bullocks and 80,000 sheep each year, and exporting around 1000 tons of tallow and 7000 tons of preserved meat.[6] Pigs and sheep were kept nearby at a leasehold section of 100 acres near the mouth of the Hutt River that was used as a grazing area and stockyard, and which quickly became known as Gear Island and was later bought by the company.[3][4]
In February 1882 an entrepreneur sent the first successful shipment of frozen meat from New Zealand, from Port Chalmers to Great Britain on the ship Dunedin, marking the opening up of new markets and opportunities for meat processing companies.[7] Gear established the Gear Meat Preserving and Freezing Company of New Zealand in November 1882 in order to use his butchering and meat preserving businesses as the basis for the new trade in frozen meat, and to distance himself from the day-to-day business for health reasons.[8][9] Gear retired as managing director in 1885.[8] The new company consisted of various properties in Wellington operating as butchers, meat preserving factories, stables and dwellings, the 16-acre plant at Petone, the lease on Gear Island, and two acres at Featherston used as stockyards. The company also owned a branch railway line running to the works at Petone.[10]
In 1880 the company built a private rail siding which ran from near the Korokoro stream, along the beach to the works. Another line across the Esplanade was built around 1885, and a network of lines was created inside the works.[4] Animals could be brought directly from the Wairarapa, and manure could be sent out by rail.
In 1883–1884 the company built a wharf at Petone under a fourteen-year license from the Wellington Harbour Board.[11] The company bought an old ship, the Jubilee, at Sydney to use as a freezing plant. The Jubilee arrived in Wellington in October 1883 and was then fitted out with freezing equipment.[12] Meat was processed at the Petone works then transferred by rail to the Jubilee moored at the wharf for freezing.[13] When the ship was full it was towed across the harbour to Wellington and the meat transferred to other ships for transport to markets.[14] Coal was brought to the wharf for the company. After Gear Meat's lease expired, the wharf was leased to the Petone Borough Council but still used by the company for shipping meat, coal, tallow and skins. In 1891 a freezing plant was built at the Petone works to replace the Jubilee,[14] and a few years later the company decided to dispose of the ship since it had become possible to transport frozen meat to Wellington quickly and cheaply by rail.[4] In 1902 the Jubilee was sold to the Westport Coal Company for use as a storage facility.[4] The wharf deteriorated and was removed in 1902, and contractors for the Harbour Board built a new wharf slightly further east along the shore during 1908-1909.[15][16]
Additions to the plant were constructed in 1885 and 1900,[17] and by 1906 the works had 80 butchers who could process 8000 sheep per day. The works had capacity to store 180,000 sheep carcases, and the fellmongery could process 6000 pelts a day. Meat was canned in another department at the works.[18] In 1890 a manure works was constructed at the southern end of Gear Island, so that offal and blood could be turned into manure for sale.[4]