The new proprietary lost no time in shifting the head office of the company from Shortland to Queen Street, Auckland, where its financial management could be kept under their inspectorial eye. When the gold output from the Thames goldfields fell away sharply in the 1870s, the population of Shortland and Grahamstown declined. Building stagnated. But the company was able to exploit new markets opened up by the Vogelite boom and began exporting its product to the south.

Hauraki Sawmill Company—An Epitome of its Memorandum
of Association

Date of Registration: 8 Feb. 1869

Objects: To saw and prepare timber for sale and to act as timber merchants

Capital: £1,000 made up of 100 £100 shares

Source: Dead Companies File Co A 38, National Archives, Auckland

The Bagnall years

In an industry which was a graveyard of companies in the 1880s, this Hauraki concern emerged as a great survivor for two reasons. First, like the profit-driven kauri timber companies, it attacked its bush without stint. Second, unlike the great kauri companies, it was astutely managed.

During the expansionist years of the seventies the company milled the bush extensively. By the mid-1880s the annual output of the Turua mill was 2,000,000 superfeet, much of which was shipped to Christchurch as dressed flooring boards; but it was also, by this

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