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Story: Shops

Minson & Co., 1910

Minson & Co., 1910

Minson’s, which described itself as a household ironmonger, was a small Christchurch shop selling cutlery, dinnerware, and sewing machines and other household appliances. Forty-eight-year-old William Minson arrived in Christchurch in 1892. He purchased a hardware store and soon transformed it into a successful business known for its excellent range and quality of crockery and glassware.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Steffano Webb Collection (PAColl-3061)

Reference: 1/1-004338; G

by Steffano Francis Webb

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Carl Walrond, Shops – Shopkeepers and shoppers, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/21220/minson-co-1910 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Carl Walrond, published 6 April 2010, updated 19 February 2026.

Comments

Rae Balmer
07 October 2015
Chinacraft started in 1952 in a shop in Hendon, London. This article shows the shop in 1953 - http://www.chinacraft.co.uk/blog/index.php/chinacraft-history/
C Pitman
12 May 2013
William Minson came from St Ives in the county of Huntingdonshire (now part of the county of Cambridgeshire)