Type | public listed company |
---|---|
Industry | Banking |
Founded | July 1874 |
Defunct | 1898 |
Headquarters | Dunedin, New Zealand |
Key people | William Larnach Matthew Holmes William Tolmie Donald Reid [1] |
Products | Banking, financial and saving services |
The Colonial Bank of New Zealand was a trading bank headquartered in Dunedin, New Zealand which operated independently for more than 20 years. A public company listed on the local stock exchanges it was owned and controlled by New Zealand entrepreneurs and not London or Australian bankers. Still subject to the same vicissitudes as its fellow colonial banks it was bought by the Bank of New Zealand in 1895.
Colonial Bank of New Zealand was established in Dunedin, New Zealand in April 1874 as a public listed company. [2] [3] Dunedin with its involvements with the South Island's gold mining was the major source of local capital for New Zealand's entrepreneurs.
The Bank of New Zealand had been founded in October 1861 by a similar local group in Auckland and, to pull capital north, it had opened a branch in Dunedin in December 1861. The Colonial Bank of New Zealand may have been formed just to re-capture the Bank of New Zealand's South Island business. [4]
In the 1860s and 1870s capital was brought into New Zealand by the government and others. There was plenty of employment, development moved quickly and very good prospects brought property prices to high values.
In the 1880s prices of staple products fell very low, the rabbit pest cut wool production and the government cut expenditure on public works by 75 per cent. Land fell to half its former value and that was impossible to realise, many runholders and businessmen were ruined and the working classes were unable to purchase goods or pay their debts. There was no dairying or frozen meat industry. Investors withdrew their capital. [5]
The Colonial Bank had expanded to 27 branches and an office in London by 1889. Trading banks got into difficulties in both Australian and New Zealand at the end of the 1880s. [6] [7]
There was a major financial slump in 1893 and negotiations began to amalgamate the Colonial Bank with the Bank of New Zealand. In 1895 the Bank of New Zealand took it over [8] then, finding itself in major difficulties, the Bank of New Zealand was obliged to let the Colonial Bank collapse in 1898.
William Larnach who had been one of the promoters [2] and owned a substantial shareholding bought more shares just prior to the collapse to show his confidence in its survival. Learning of the collapse he shut himself in one of parliament's committee rooms and shot himself dead. [9]
The business was liquidated by 1901 and the company dissolved in 1905. [10]
The New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition was an international exhibition held in Dunedin, New Zealand from 26 November 1889 to 19 April 1890.
The National Bank of New Zealand Limited (NBNZ), often referred to as The National Bank, was one of New Zealand's largest banks. Throughout much of its history, the National Bank provided commercial banking services to mainly major industrial and rural as well as some personal customers.
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) is one of New Zealand's big four banks and has been operating in the country since the first office was opened in Auckland in October 1861 followed shortly after by the first branch in Dunedin in December 1861. The bank operates a variety of financial services covering retail, business and institutional banking and employs over 5,000 people in New Zealand. In 1992 the bank was purchased by the National Australia Bank and has since then operated as a subsidiary, but it retains local governance with a New Zealand board of directors.
The Otago Daily Times (ODT) is a newspaper published by Allied Press Ltd in Dunedin, New Zealand. The ODT is one of the country's four main daily newspapers, serving the southern South Island with a circulation of around 26,000 and a combined print and digital annual audience of 304,000. Founded in 1861 it is New Zealand's oldest surviving daily newspaper – Christchurch's The Press, six months older, was a weekly paper until March 1863.
The Otago Gold Rush was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area – many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia.
Larnach Castle is a mock castle on the ridge of the Otago Peninsula within the limits of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand, close to the small settlement of Pukehiki. It is one of a few houses of this scale in New Zealand. The house was built by the prominent entrepreneur and politician, William Larnach. Since 1967, the castle has been privately owned by the Barker family, and opened as a tourist attraction, as "New Zealand's only castle".
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William James Mudie Larnach was a New Zealand businessman and politician. He is known for his extravagant incomplete house near Dunedin called Larnach's castle by his opponents and now known as Larnach Castle. He is also remembered for his suicide within parliament buildings when faced with bankruptcy and consequent loss of his seat in parliament.
Robert Arthur Lawson was one of New Zealand's pre-eminent 19th century architects. It has been said he did more than any other designer to shape the face of the Victorian era architecture of the city of Dunedin. He is the architect of over forty churches, including Dunedin's First Church for which he is best remembered, but also other buildings, such as Larnach Castle, a country house, with which he is also associated.
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City of Dunedin, during the first two parliaments called Town of Dunedin, was a parliamentary electorate in Dunedin in Otago, New Zealand. It was one of the original electorates created in 1853 and existed, with two breaks, until 1905. The first break, from 1862 to 1866, was caused by an influx of people through the Otago Gold Rush, when many new electorates were formed in Otago. The second break occurred from 1881 to 1890. It was the only New Zealand electorate that was created as a single-member, two-member and three member electorate.
Samuel Edward Shrimski was a 19th-century Member of Parliament and then a Member of the Legislative Council from Otago, New Zealand.
The Otago Witness was a prominent illustrated weekly newspaper in the early years of the European settlement of New Zealand, produced in Dunedin, the provincial capital of Otago. Published weekly, it existed from 1851 to 1932. The introduction of the Otago Daily Times, followed by other daily newspapers in its circulation area, led it to focus on serving a rural readership in the lower South Island, where poor road access prevented newspapers being delivered daily. It also provided an outlet for local fiction writers. It is notable as the first newspaper to use illustrations and photographs and was the first New Zealand newspaper to provide a correspondence column for children, which was known as "Dot's Little Folk". Together with the Auckland-based Weekly News and the Wellington-based New Zealand Free Lance it was one of the most significant illustrated weekly New Zealand newspapers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sir Harold Beauchamp was a New Zealand businessman and later two times chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. He is remembered as the father of author Katherine Mansfield.
The Bruce by-election 1862 was a by-election held in the multi-member Bruce electorate during the 3rd New Zealand Parliament, on 31 July 1862. The by-election was caused by the death of incumbent MP Charles Kettle on 5 June, and was won by Edward Cargill.
William Gordon Dixon was an English-born cricketer. He played nine first-class matches in New Zealand for Otago between the 1875–76 and 1885–86 seasons.
John Hope was a New Zealand sportsman. He played 22 first-class cricket matches for Otago between the 1885–86 and 1899–1900 seasons and played representative rugby union for the Otago and Southland Rugby Football Unions. He was later a prominent sports administrator in the province.
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The Bank of Otago was a bank which successfully operated in New Zealand's Otago province from late 1863 until it was bought in 1873 by a new London incorporation, The National Bank of New Zealand, also run from Dunedin but endowed with many times more capital and plans to operate nationwide.
This list of works by Robert Lawson categorises and provides brief details of the structures designed by Scottish-born architect Robert A. Lawson (1833–1902) who is said did more than any other designer to shape the face of the Victorian era architecture of the city of Dunedin.