Makahu

Taranaki

26 Jan

Dates: 1904-1931
Location: 835 Mangaehu Road, Makahu, Taranaki (-39.292662, 174.630690)
Registration No: 305
Brand names: MAKAHU

Although the Makahu Co-operative Dairy Company Limited was originally incorporated in 1902, it would be more than two years before the factory was built and operational. This was almost entirely due to the primitive state of the roads and Makahu’s isolation where the timber and machinery including the huge boiler had to be transported over the steep hill (subsequently tunnelled) and through the then unbridged Mangaehu river by bullock wagons.

The butter factory was opened in November 1904 by the Minister of Public Works Mr W Hall-Jones.

The first directors were Messrs AM Coyne, M Ford, FK Kopke, J Diggins, W Manning, W Riddle and E Skinner. Mr Riddle was the first chairman but after a year he was succeeded by Mr Augustine M Coyne who held office for 27 of the 29 years the company was in operation.

Despite the factory being located very close to the Mangaehu River, the factory suffered from a shortage of water in its first year of operation. The factory’s isolation also meant that that it struggled to be economically viable resulting in an unsuccessful attempt in 1912 to merge with the Stratford Dairy Company. The factory then converted from butter to cheese production in 1915 given the higher prices being paid for cheese.

The first manager Mr Sidney Clayton wrote in his diary about his three years as manager.

“After three years in Stratford, I felt I knew enough about the business to get something better and applied for a small factory at Makahu, some 30 miles east of Stratford; salary £150 with a free house. I was appointed and stayed there for three years (1904-1906) and (in passing) met my second wife whom I married in the second year, so the third year we looked after the factory jointly. I did very well and during my term secured respectively 7th, 2nd and 1st place on the grading list at New Plymouth. This in spite of my isolation, and the day long trip in a wagon to Stratford which the butter had to travel. Being 30 miles from an engineer and 5 from a blacksmith, one has to be ready for anything but I always managed to keep the wheels moving. A primitive sort of life with stores and mail delivered weekly, we were quite comfortable in the small shanty. We once accommodated relations by making up one bed on top of the loose pumice at the top of the factory cool room. Baths were had in the factory wash tub and some of our cooking done by the exhaust steam from the engine.

Once the season started there was no respite until it finished and I doubt if I was half a mile away from the factory for eight months. At the end of one season, I remember waliking the 25 odd miles to Stratford, the road being very boggy all the way to Douglas. After three years, the Directors tried hard to get me to stay but I could see no prospect and could not ask for any more money so decided to take a job in a cheese factory”.