Brownlee & Co Store Havelock

Brownlee & Co Store Lucknow Street. Staff members outside the store from right E.H.S, W.H.Smith, J.Gorrie, J.Reid, E.Reader, V.Twidle and in the Express (wagon) A.Irvine. Brownlee & Co were Wholesale and Retail Merchants and General Storekeepers. Their Bankers, Bank of New Zealand, Blenheim. This business was established in 1872. The firm carried heavy stocks of general merchandise, including drapery, groceries, ironmongery, crockery and glassware. It did a good steady trade throughout the district for a radius of twenty miles, and all through the Pelorus Sounds. Its delivery carts were kept going, and the business gave employment to four or five men. The firm had the local agency for the Commercial Union Fire and Marine Insurance Company. William Hadfield Smith became the Manager from 1877 and fourteen years later was still going strong!