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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Briscoe And Company, Limited

Briscoe And Company, Limited , Ironmongers, Iron and Hardware Merchants. Princes. Jetty, and Bond Streets, Dunedin. Telephones 697–698–732. P.O. Box 156. Bankers, Union Bank of Australasia, Limited. Manager, Forsyth Johnston. Head Office: Briscoe and Co., Ltd., 36 Basinghall Street, London, E.C., and houses at Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington, Auckland, Invercargill. There is also an agency at Christchurch, where an extensive indent business is done. Cable address: “Briscoe's.” Dunedin. Codes: Abc, Al. Western Union and Private. The firm of Messrs Briscoe and Co., Limited, is an offshoot of the old house of William Briscoe and Son, which was founded in Wolverhampton about the year 1768. When the colonial houses of the original firm were established, there were five partners; namely Messrs Richard Holt Briscoe, Walter Briscoe. Arthur Briscoe, John Edward Briscoe, and Hugh MacNeil, senior. Of these, three are dead—Messrs W. and J. E. Briscoe, and Mr. MacNeil. The Melbourne house was founded in 1853, the Dunedin business in 1862, and that in Sydney in 1878; the Invercargill house was opened in 1881 as a branch of the Dunedin firm, but owing to increasing business, it was made a separate concern in 1901. The late Mr. Hugh MacNeil, senior, came over to Otago to inaugurate the business in New Zealand, and since then it has practically covered the country. The large and imposing building occupied by the firm in Princes Street and Jetty Street. Dunedin, is erected on freehold land. There are three fine entrances to the premises from Princes Street, and the ground floor accommodates four departments—wholesale, retail, showroom and offices. In the wholesale department, which is furnished with order desks, a large general stock is maintained; and the packing room is close by, with a cart entrance from Princes Street. A large hydraulic lift communicates from this floor with the basement and upper flat. The retail department, which is conducted in the portion of the premises nearest the Jetty Street side, contains handsome show cases and stands, extensive counters, and a large and varied stock of general hardware. Behind the retail shop is the showroom, where there is a display of mantels and files, register grates, lamps of all sorts and sizes, and many other lines, including a brilliant variety of electroplated ware, which is shown in splendid glass cases, one of which is especially large. At the back of the wholesale department there are private rooms for the manager, accountant, and partners' and warehouse and indent offices. The indent offices contain a library of manufacturers' catalogues, which are fully indexed, and number 2000 volumes, representing at least that number of manufacturers. A portion of this office is also set apart as a typewriting department, and two typists are kept constantly employed. A handsome stair-case
Messrs Briscoe and Co.'s Warehouse.

Messrs Briscoe and Co.'s Warehouse.

communicates with the upper floor, which is divided into two parts. The back portion contains twines, cutlery, black hardware, japanned tinware, buggy lamps and fittings, paints and varnishes, garden and field tools, and endless varieties of general stock. In the front, such lines as brushware, screws, ammunition, brassware, files, lamp wicks and fittings, tools of all kinds, scales, buckets enamelware, etc., are kept. Above this flat there is a spacious loft, which is used for the storage of light surplus stock. The basement of the establishment has two departments, where American and English goods respectively, are kept. In the first are found American stoves, axes, handles, shovels, and many other lines, which cannot be particularised. The British department is the repository of nails, wire netting, grates, spades, picks, bolts, nuts, washers, hollowware, sash weights, cement, shot, and other articles. At one corner of this room there is a dark place, where rubber goods—such as hose, insertion, belting, and asbestos—and other perishable goods are stored. The iron yards in Bond Street, which are situated on each side of the street, are connected with the main establishment by a private telephone. On the west side, the building, which is of brick roofed with iron, contains a heavy stock of bar, sheet plate, and hoop iron, axles, vyces; anvils, gas pipes, and fittings, steel of all kinds, carriage and cart woodware, etc. The covered yard on the eastern side of Bond Street is built of iron; and large quantities of cement, fencing and barbed wire, galvanised iron, grindstones, and oils are stored there. Adjoining the yard there is a large open section, where roofing-tiles, fire bricks, drain pipes, pig iron, girder plates, and other non-perishable goods are kept in stock. Messrs Briscoe and Co.'s kerosene store is in Anderson's Bay road, where they have also two other free stores; and the firm's stock of powder is stored at the Government magazine in the same locality. The large business conducted from Dunedin by Messrs Briscoe and Co. is confined chiefly to the South Island, where seven travellers are steadily engaged in visiting the customers; but the North Island is left to the Wellington and Auckland houses of the firm. The stocks of the firm are singularly well selected, and are replete with all necessary lines of the very latest design to keep pace with the extensive trade done by the firm. This, however, is a comparatively easy matter, as in the case of Messrs Briscoe and Co., the firm has the advantage of its houses in London. page 329 Melbourne, and Sydney, from which to maintain a thoroughly well assorted stock. A large indenting business is also transacted by the firm through its London house. Each department in Dunedin has its own specially trained staff. The agencies held by the firm are numerous and varied, and include Wunderlich Patent Ceiling and Roofing Materials: Marseilles Red Roofing Tiles; P. McSkimming and Son's (Benhar) Stoneware Pipes, Ryland's Wire Rope; Kynoch, Limited, High Explosives (Dynamite, Gelignite, etc.), Blasting Powder, and Pellets. Cartridges; Asiatic Petroleum Company, Limited. Kerosene, Benzine, oils, etc., etc., and others.