William Winstone

William Winstone was born to parents Charles Winstone and Mary Winstone (née Vowles) at Hodders' Farm in Barrow Gurney, Somersetshire, on 1 June 1843. He grew up working on the family farm, and gained experience handling horses, which would be an interest that continued throughout his life. He was educated at Failand School. In 1859 at age sixteen, he married Ellen Sperrin of Backwell, Somersetshire, his twenty-eight-year-old ex-school teacher. He left England to avoid the family farming occupation.

Arrival in New Zealand

On 3 June 1859, William Winstone departed from Gravesend for New Zealand on the 805-tonne ship Spray of the Ocean. He left with thirty shillings to his name, and this was divided between him and a fellow emigrant while onboard. Winstone arrived in Auckland after 86 days at sea, on 1 September 1859. It was not a prosperous period in the fledgling Auckland city, with little work available. He quickly took a job planting potatoes. He left the city to work as a teamster for a year at a farm in Drury, south of Auckland. He worked with horses, ploughed and did other manual labour including drain digging. He continued working on South Auckland farms for the next few years, before moving back to the city.

New Zealand Wars

Upon the Waikato invasion of 1863 during the New Zealand Land Wars, Winstone was back in Auckland city trying to get into the "carrying trade", providing haulage by horse and cart. Able-bodied men in Auckland aged 16 to 60 were called up to join the local militia, which included the then twenty year old Winstone. He received military training and was part of the militia for six months, before being seconded to a new transportation posting carting supplies between Auckland and the Waikato River at Mercer. The convoy of horses and carts travelled through rough track in the bush over two days, first from Auckland to Drury, and the next day the team continued over the Razorback to Mercer. Winstone recounted transporting an iron screw steamer in 1863, the Gymnotus, with a team of 14 horses and a timber wagon. The vessel was the first privately owned steamer on the Waikato river, and transported cargo for the military during the Waikato action. During Winstone's time transporting goods for the militia, his wife Ellen and infant daughter Eliza Annie (who would be their only biological child) arrived in New Zealand.

At the end of the Waikato war in 1864, Winstone had started working as a coal merchant and carrier. His one-man operation with a horse and cart quickly expanded alongside the city of Auckland, and he began to employ staff and accumulate a growing fleet of horses and carts. The Winstone family lived at 12 Hayden Street, Newton, Auckland, with stables and driver accommodation on the property. Ellen Winstone was tasked with providing meals for the drivers. In 1867, Winstone temporarily shifted some of his operations to Thames when the gold rush drew business away from Auckland.

W. & G. Winstone

George Winstone was the younger brother of William Winstone. Like William, he left England at a young age, and sailed on the ship Mangerton to Queensland when he was 13 to work at his cousin's Mr Foote's shop in Ipswitch. In 1869, after working as a storekeeper for 8 years in Australia, George took up an invitation by William to come to Auckland and join his carrying business. They formed a partnership shortly after George's arrival, creating W. & G. Winstone Limited with a pooled capital of £630. William started out with an eighty percent share to George's twenty percent, but it later shifted to a fifty-fifty split.

Quarry accident

William Winstone suffered severe injuries in a quarry accident on 22 February 1870, not long after George's arrival. Winstone was quarrying basalt at the Mount Eden quarry, intended for the Auckland Stock Exchange building on Queen Street, which would be one of the most impressive commercial buildings of late colonial Auckland. The accident happened when the blasting powder he and his employee, Benjamin Thomas, were using ignited unexpectedly, and they were caught in the resulting explosion. Winstone was closest to the explosives, and the explosive powder got in his face and eyes, his left hand and arm were injured, and his leg badly cut. Thomas was also severely injured, having received a blow to the head. Winstone was briefly presumed dead by the first responders. A doctor, Mr Pierce, quickly arrived on the scene and attended to the men's injuries. It was hoped Winstone would not lose his eyesight following the accident, but he became blind in one eye, and lost half his vision in the other.

It took two years for William to recover, nursed back to health by Ellen. Some sources suggest he travelled to England for specialist eye care in this period. William's involvement with the company's horses did not cease during his recovery, and he won first prize at the 1872 New Zealand Agricultural Society Show for his 5 and 6 year old team of heavy carting horses. That year, Ellen's 10-year-old nephew Frederick Brock Winstone arrived in New Zealand aboard the Caduceus, and William and Ellen adopted him as their son. Frederick would join the company in 1880 after leaving school, and worked his way up to managing director and secretary of the company in 1904.

The 1870s proved to be a profitable decade for W. & G. Winstone Ltd despite the flagging New Zealand economy. This was due in part to the company winning government carting contracts in Premier Julius Vogel's public works schemes, and supplying building materials. They provided haulage for the flattening and reclamation of Point Britomart. In 1874 William and George signed an 85 year lease for two Custom House Street properties and built a double-fronted two-storey company building divided by a public weigh bridge. They occupied the left half of the property, and leased the right half to grain merchants Gunson and Martin. That year, George Winstone married merchant Robert Martin's sister, Mary Elizabeth Martin.