Story: Industrial design

David Jenkin, the head designer for tableware manufacturer Crown Lynn, shows off some of his firm's products during a 1959 factory tour by the Labour cabinet minister Mabel Howard. In 1958 a foreign-exchange crisis had led the government to reintroduce import controls on manufactured products (as had happened 20 years earlier). This was good news for firms like Crown Lynn, which cranked up production to meet growing demand. In 1959 it produced 8 million items and supplied 40% of New Zealand's tableware market.