A & G Price

A&G Price was established in 1868 in Princes Street, Onehunga by Alfred Price and George Price, two brothers from Stroud, Gloucestershire. They built almost 100 flax-milling machines in their first year. The brothers also built machinery for gold miners. They moved to the Coromandel Gold Rushes in 1871 setting up premises in Beach Road, Thames and closing the Onehunga works in 1873 after building 10 coaches and 12 trucks there for the Public Works Department. The firm's ownership was transferred to a limited liability company in 1907.

Ownership

A&G Price Limited remained under family management until November 1949 when it was bought by Wellington engineers, William Cable & Company. The two companies then exchanged board members but kept their separate identities. Cable bought Downer & Co in 1954 and in 1964 William Cable Holdings was renamed Cable, Price, Downer Limited.

In 1974 the staff of A&G Price alone was in excess of 520 people. Its head office was in Fanshawe Street, Auckland. Beach Road Thames was described as a branch. In 1988 corporate raider Brierley Investments obtained control of the group parent, Cable Price Downer, and broke the group back into its three separate businesses. A&G Price, Beach Road, Thames, was until liquidation part of the Tiri Group, based in Mount Wellington and controlled from Nelson by Tom Sturgess.

In July 2017, A&G Price was placed in administration with the loss of 100 jobs. The business was bought from the administrator by Christopher Reeve in April 2018. Reeve had been unable to sell the land and buildings. The business now operates with a reduced workforce under Reeve's ownership.

A&G Price produced water turbines under the Pelton patent. Lester Allan Pelton invented and a highly efficient turbine patenting it in 1880. Initially, Pelton manufactured and sold the turbines to gold mine operators in the California goldfields, and later licensed the manufacturing to companies across the world. A small A&G Price turbine is on display at the Goldmine Experience in Thames, New Zealand.

Abner Doble helped A&G Price develop a steam engine for buses at the Thames workshops. The first engine was trialled by the Auckland Transport Board in the early 1930s. A second bus was made in 1932 for White and Sons for the Auckland Thames route.

In 2004 a precision-formed yacht keel division was set up to make the Maximus canting keel.