J. J. Niven Engineering Ltd
| Public Listed Company | |
| Industry | engineering |
| Founded | 1866 |
| Founders | James Just Niven and Charles Scott Galloway |
| Headquarters | Wellington |
|
Number of locations
|
Wellington and throughout New Zealand |
Jas J Niven & Co Limited later Niven Engineering, was a New Zealand engineering business based in Wellington with operations throughout the country. The foundry that became Niven's business was established in Napier in 1866.
It was taken over by Brierley Investments in the 1970s and its business components and its property sold off.
The business that became Niven Engineering began at The Spit, Napier in the later half of the 19th century as Hawke’s Bay Foundry. Hawkes Bay Foundry provided engineering and blacksmith services for the local fishing, shipping and farming industries. The Spit was on the eastern side of the entrance to Ahuriri Lagoon and until the 1931 earthquake attached only to Bluff Hill from where it was accessed by Waghorne Street which ran its length.
In 1882, the year of the first successful shipment of refrigerated meat from New Zealand to London, engineers Charles Scott Galloway and James Just Niven (1856-1913) in Glasgow, Scotland decided they would do better for themselves by starting their own business on the far side of the world in New Zealand. They came to New Zealand and in 1886 bought Hawkes Bay Foundry from Hodgson, Bowler and Co, said Niven, for "nothing". This year, 1886, saw the move of the port about a mile east from the western end of The Spit to the new harbour now Port of Napier sheltered from the open Pacific by no more than its new purpose-built breakwater.
Niven left the business in 1889 for Galloway to resume alone and went to work for Nelson Brothers Limited which had embarked on a programme of major expansion of its various freezing works. Nelson Brothers operated the freezing works at Tomoana then 12 miles from a rapidly growing Napier.
When Galloway retired in October 1893 he returned to Scotland. Admitted a full member of The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland in December 1894 he was last reported in British Columbia in 1897.
James Niven now along with another engineer, George Nelson (1871-1964) MIMechE (1906), bought Galloway's business naming it Jas J Niven and Co. The second engineer, George Nelson, was a son of one of the founders of Nelson Brothers Limited.
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