Where are all the coachbuilders?
Museum houses historic register rich in detail of the services required by early settlers throughout the district
ANatalie Brookland
nyone interested in horses and trying to establish a career in the equine industry today may feel their options are somewhat limited, especially when they compare the multitude of professions available a century ago which centred around these animals.
Before motorised vehicles, horses played a predominant role in the lives of early Whanga¯rei families, farmers and businesses alike and were essential in contributing to the developing township. To furnish this need occupations such as wheelwrights, blacksmiths, saddlers, lorimers, coachbuilders and coach-painters were vital.
Housed amongst the archives at Whanga¯rei Museum is a relic from one of these prominent businesses so necessary over a century ago. It reveals the daily workings and gamut of services offered by one of Whanga¯rei’s leading coachbuilders and wheelwrights of the time.
The large register used by Tucker & Grice dates from 1886 to 1888 and is rich in detail furnishing particulars relating to many early settlers.
Situated in Cameron St, Whanga¯rei in the early 1880s, the firm was established by John Tucker and James Grice. Their business manufactured ploughs, harrows, scarifiers, drays, carts and buggies while also supplying shoeing, wheelwright and coach repair services.
James Grice, born in Surrey, England in 1856, worked in his father’s London wheelwrights and blacksmiths business until his early 20s. Having completed an apprenticeship as a coachbuilder he then sought passage onboard the Hero and emigrated to New Zealand in 1880 at 24.
According to descendants, once in Whanga¯rei, Grice initially founded his own business using the trades learnt from his father before amalgamating with Tucker.
Although Tucker was born in Auckland and only a few years younger than Grice, little is known of his earlier life apart from his marriage to Catherine Alice Lincolm in 1880, the same year Grice arrived in the country.
Once these two young men joined forces they developed a thriving commercial enterprise earning Tucker & Grice an untarnished reputation for exemplary work and services.
However, in 1888 the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent and the business taken over by Tucker who continued independently. Grice opted to establish his own firm and having purchased the corner section next to Porter’s Store, the Central Coach Factory and Shoeing Forge was opened in May 1889. Grice advertised his new brick workshop on Bank St widely, announcing his “increased facilities” and proclaiming it to be “the only place in Whangarei where coach painting is done”.
Business must have prospered as Grice built a large two storey home on Bank St in 1890 where he resided with his family until shortly before his death in 1917, aged 62.
John Tucker predeceased his old partner by several years in 1892. His life was cut short during a tragic boating accident in the Whanga¯rei Harbour in which he drowned, aged 32. His yacht Minerva capsized in rough weather causing a double tragedy as Tucker’s brother Albert also lost his life along with six other passengers, leaving only one survivor.
Tucker’s business, the Excelsior Forge and Coach Factory was left to his widow, who in 1893 sold it to Mr N A Jones.
The original factory in Cameron St continued to offer the same services after Tucker’s death with the register in the museum’s collection providing an insight of the Victorian manpower necessary to run an industrious forge and coach factory.