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Story: Workshop industries

Piano workshop, Dunedin

Piano workshop, Dunedin

Pianos were heavy and expensive to import to New Zealand, so Frederick Howell's piano-making workshop in Dunedin was able to survive for almost 50 years from the 1860s. However by 1898, when this photograph was taken, local manufacturing costs were rising while the cost of imported instruments was dropping. Howell's workshop went out of business about 10 years later. Most other workshops making handcrafted products for local sale disappeared around the same period.

Using this item

Hocken Collections, University of Otago

Reference: S09-350a

Permission of the Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Further information may be obtained from the Library through its website.

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How to cite this page

Ian Hunter, Workshop industries – The first New Zealand workshops, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/26028/piano-workshop-dunedin (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Ian Hunter, published 26 February 2010.

Comments

Guy Howell
04 December 2016
Frederick Howell was also my great grandfather - his first wife Caroline Filkins and he were married in Dunedin 16 December 1882 days after her arrival in Port Chalmers on the SSCanterbury.. My grandafther Frederick Barsham Howell was youngest of six children and was born in 1891 in Dunedin. Sadly Caroline passd away the next year. Frederick joined up with another gentleman from UK with piano experience and had numerous premises in Dunedin and Invercargill - F Howell & Co was established in 1883 and the partnership as Oakden and Howell in 1884.The promotion that year boasts they each had pianoforte experience in UK with the celebrated firms of Brinsmead and Hopkinson both of London. I cannot find any earlier reference to their chosen vocation. I have visited his main workshop still standing in Dunedin in Howells Lane (named after Frederick if course} and have interesting anecdotal indications of the involvement of the Lord of the Manor being the true father of Frederick (Eliza Ann working at Lydiard House as a 19 yr old housemaid) I have visited Lydiard House several times and have friends in Wiltshire actively seeking further confirmation. The 1861 Census shows Frederick (known now as Frederick Edmonds) living at the Edmonds household. I have tracked his use of that name through until his marriage, when he reverted to Howell . Can provide printed refs of that time issued by Fred Howell saying he was previously known to his customers as Edmonds. Be interesting to compare notes re Edmonds sometime. Main difference is that I hold a Marriage Certificate certifying Thomas Howell and Eliza Ann Crewe Edmnds were married in Church at Wiltshire 1st July 1857, two months before Frederick was born. Happy to accept any calls 021 2119017 initially and go gtom there. Like Pauline I have heaps of papers but not yet assembled into workable order! I am now retired (criminal investigator) and live in Dunedin. To finish I remember many happy times with John Bertram Howell (Uncle John ) and his wife Auntie Pearl,esp when I was on the beat in Courtenay Place - great place for a cuppa but angry with myself I didnt ask more questions re family history at that time.
Pauline Mobey
05 April 2015
Frederick Howell (if this is the same one) was born 3rd September 1857 at Christian Malford, Wiltshire. His birth certificate shows Frederick, son of Thomas Howell (agricultural labourer) and Eliza Ann Howell formerly Edmunds. The person who registered the birth was Eliza Ann Howell, mother. His mother was in fact Eliza Ann Crewe Edmonds, born 1838 in Lydiard Millicent, Wiltshire, the daughter of Henry Beasant Edmonds and Mary Ann Hillier. Eliza and Thomas Howell never married although they claimed to be man and wife. Son Frederick was also an agricultural labourer. I would be very interested to know how and where he learned about pianos. I have worked on the Edmonds tree for some years, so the above information can be relied upon. Pauline Mobey
Maurice Quinn
17 April 2014
Frederick Howell (b. Frederick Edmonds, Purton, Wiltshire c1859) was my great-grandfather; he was still living at 9 Tui St, Fendalton, Christchurch in 1948 when I last saw him (he died 1950. The youngest son of his second (of three) marriages was John Bartram Howell, who inherited his father's interests and sold/tuned/repaired pianos/American organs at Wellington premises (Vivian St and Courtenay Place until his death c. 1976. I have since inherited much of his gear, although - as a baroque musician with a Dolmetsch (Haslemere) it is harpsichords and organs that form the foundation for my ensembles - and the computer (with Sibelius software - has invaded my domain! (Maurice Quinn, Palmerston North).