Murray Roberts & Co
| private company | |
| Industry | Stock and station agency |
| Fate | bought by National Mortgage & Agency Co of New Zealand |
| Founded | 1867 in Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Founder | John Roberts |
| Defunct | 30 June 1961 |
| Headquarters | Dunedin (Wellington from 1910), New Zealand |
|
Area served
|
New Zealand, excluding Canterbury and the upperNorth Island |
|
Key people
|
John Roberts, A H Miles |
| Products |
|
Murray Roberts & Co Limited owned a in New Zealand. For a time, it was New Zealand's largest wool exporter. Its business began in Green Island, Dunedin as a fellmongery owned by the Melbourne partners. Under direction of young John Roberts from 1867, it made very substantial investments in rural property in Otago and Hawke's Bay and spread as a stock and station agency through Otago, Southland, and the lower half of the North Island.
Ownership was transferred to a newly incorporated limited liability company in 1910. Until then it had been owned by a complicated network of partners with its core in Scotland, England, and Dunedin. Additional different subsidiary partnerships in different regions were set up to include local management.
Murray Roberts & Co Limited was purchased in 1961 by another Dunedin-based business, London-listed company, National Mortgage and Agency Company of New Zealand. It became fully integrated with the operations of National Mortgage and lost most of its separate identity in 1963 though some operations continued until 1965.
George Roberts, a woollen manufacturer of Selkirk, Scotland sent his 19-year-old fourth son, John, to Melbourne, Australia in 1864 to join young John Sanderson in a new colonial venture with the Sanderson and Murray families from nearby Galashiels. Sanderson Murray & Co owned a very substantial woolbrokers and import-export merchants in Gresham Street, London. John was required by his father to learn the colonial business, buy wool supplies and sell Selkirk's high quality products. Over two years he worked on two runs, the second belonging to young John Sanderson. Sanderson did not pay him for his twelve months' work.
George Roberts wanted his own supply of wool. A new land act restricted the properties young Roberts could buy in Victoria and run for himself, and at his father's suggestion in 1867 he crossed to Dunedin where there was no restriction on buying available land. Sanderson Murray & Co had a small fellmongery at Green Island, and though unwilling, Roberts and his younger brother were required to take charge. The fellmongery never prospered but it was the first centre of Murray Roberts' operations.
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Wikipedia