New Zealand Society of Animal Production online archive This paper is from the New Zealand Society for Animal Production online archive. NZSAP holds a regular An invitation is extended to all those involved in the field of animal production to apply for membership of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production at our website www.nzsap.org.nz View All Proceedings Next Conference Join NZSAP The New Zealand Society of Animal Production in publishing the conference proceedings is engaged in disseminating information, not rendering professional advice or services. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production and the New Zealand Society of Animal Production expressly disclaims any form of liability with respect to anything done or omitted to be done in reliance upon the contents of these proceedings. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You are free to: Share— copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. http://creativecommons.org.nz/licences/licences-explained/ DAVIDSON AND BRYDONE FOUNDERS OF THE NEW ZEALAND MEAT EXPORT INDUSTRY P. ID. Hewland” IN NE\v ZEALAND HIsToRY some wild whaler in pursuit of a princess may have a page to himself, but William Soltau David- son has none. It is commonly asked, who was this Davidson? What manner of legend is built about him? There is none, yet. Seventy-six years after the event, Davidson is only now nationally credited with his achievement in originating, plan- ning and organizing the first shipment of meat lmder refrigera- tion for export. His similar though not so direct contribution to the establishment of the first dairy factory and the first export of cheese and butter is now also recognizecl. He must be ac- counted among the heroes of o11r pastoral industry for still more reasons than these. For three to four clecacles from the the late sixties he exercised considerable influence upon manage- ment practice 011 South Island pastoral runs; and policies he instituted accelerated the subdivision of large estates and the more intensive farming of the land in the south. Davidson’s service was in the first instance with the Canter- bury ancl Otago Association on its .Levels Estate, South Canter- bury, When this association merged into the New Zealand and Australian Land Company in 1877 he became the company’s general manager, headquartered in Scotlancl, and controlling lands carrying over a million and a half sheep in New Zealand and Australia. His whole working life was devoted to this service, which began in 186.~ uncl ended in 1916. To his duties Davidson brought skill in farming and in business management. He was a man of vision not hounded by close limits, yet his successes were fouildecl upon a cleliberate, painstaking attention to the detail of organization in the enterprises large and small upon which he embarked, ,und he was able to draw to him and retain the services of able men. Had he lived his full working life in Nev, 7 Zealand, he would no doubt have won general recognition in his time as the figure of importance which he is now discovered to have been. 62 PROCEEDINGS Thomas Brydone was Davidson’s next-in-command in New Zealand. He entered upon this role when he was appointed superintendent to the New Zealand and Australian Land Com- pany at the time of the 1877 merger. His appointment coin- cided with that of Davidson as general manager of the com- pany. He had previously been superintendent for the old Land Company, having arrived in 1868 to take that post. Brydone was another Scotsman of great organizing capa- city. The two men were a sound partnership in management. But they were not alike in appearance or in temperament. Brydone was in physical and many other respects a prominent, well- rounded manager, of whom people in the south, particularly south of the Waitaki, are today still very well aware. In ad- dition to his work in the management and subdivision of estates and in the introduction of frozen meat and dairy exports, he was a director of several companies and president of the Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Association. He came early in the tradition of managers on the land, a man happy in the exercise of his considerable influence in the community. Davidson, directing from his headquarters in Scotland, was only occasionally on the scene of operations, Brydone was in himself, as it were, the Land Company within the Otago com- munity. After his death they built him in 1907 a starkly hand- some stone monument at Totara, five miles south of Oamaru, It dominates the landscape much as he had dominated it from an eminence in his lifetime. On the Brydone Memorial was placed an inscription which declared him ‘Pioneer of the Frozen Meat and Dairy Industries’, an inscription that was perhaps inadequate and did injustice, as we shall shortly see: to both Brydone himself and Davidson. Davidson was a different build of man. Looking at a re- production of Sir James Guthrie’s portrait in oils of Davidson, you might think him the Dean of an Arts faculty rather than the man who originated and organized the first shipment of frozen carcasses of mutton to London, Although much larger horizons were available to him than to Brydone, and although many of Davidson’s operations were international in character and often spectacular in their effects, he was quiet, deliberate and unspectacular in his conduct of his business. So there is no legend built about Davidson. These two men, each in his own way, can be considered fairly typical of people who then and later have had manage- ment or proprietorship of large pastoral runs in New Zealand. There is a tradition, particularly in the South Island, of shrewd, DAVIDSON AND BRYDONE 63 well-informed direction of these enterprises, which today, as then, involve capital assets and annual turnovers greater than those of many sizable industrial firms, yet are wholly managed by one or two persons. The approach to management taken by Davidson and Brydone and other notable farmers of their generation may be said to have laid down a standard for those who followed. These are general impressions, by way of introduction. It should be noted that published sources of information about Davidson and Brydone are not many nor have the possibilities for the accumulation of the more personal detail about them been exhaustively explored even yet. Of Brydone there are various fragmentary publishzre- cords, mainly to be found in newspaper files. Of Davidson there is an autobiographical sketch of his working life written in 1915-16, when his retirement was impending, and published posthumously and privately in Edinburgh in 1gr30.* Several copies of this are in existence in New Zealand. Facts and claims of major importance set out by Davidson in this book are sustained in essentials by records in Scotland of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company and in other published references to him. Davidson was the younger of the two men, by seven years, but he was the first upon the scene in New Zealand. Born in 1846, he was a son of one of the chief officers of the National Bank of Scotland and a cousin of Randall Davidson, i4rchbishop of Canterbury. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and was learning book-keeping in an Edinburgh merchant’s office at 19. But he wanted an outdoor life. Arrangements were made for him to go to the estancia of a family friend in Argentina. To prepare himself for the journey he had ar- ranged lectures in Spanish, but then his father on a train journey chanced to meet one James Morton, a noted financier. The father was persuaded by Morton that New Zealand was a more desirable choice for a young man starting out in life. James Morton was a colourful speculator who, Davidson says, had in 1865 just started a land company known as the Canter- bury and Otago Association. Between 1860 and 1865 there were many separ;lte associations composed of private syndicates in London and Glasgow, which entered into arrangements to acquire pastoral property in Australia ancl New Zealand. Large pro- perties were bought in New Zealand in 1863 to 1865 and were Tillium SoltmL Daoidsor+ 1846-1924 (Oliver & Boyd, 1930). 64 PROCEEDINGS afterwards sold to the original New Zealand and Australian Land Company. Morton’s Canterbury and Otago Association was a separate company which was not established until 1865. It was this company which young Davidson joined. He after- wards noted that the original associations bought comparatively poor land. He considered that in going into Southland they selected ‘about the most unsuitable and unprofitable land in New Zealand for a company to work.‘* He was fortunate in joining, instead. the newer enterprise whose properties generally were better. Davidson’s Activities in New Zealand He set out in lS65 by sailing ship romld the Cape of Good Hope for Port Chalmers. From there he travelled by a wretched coastal vessel and was precipitated by surf boat on to the beach at Timaru. Reading his account of the journey, one is immediately impressed with his active interest in the detail of it-a characteristic apparent later in the planning of his company’s enterprises.