New Zealand and Australian Land Company

The New Zealand and Australian Land Company was undoubtedly
the most successful of the land companies. In the early
1860s a number of unincorporated societies in Scotland held
land in Otago and Southland, and James Morton, a Glasgow
merchant, set about amalgamating them. The New Zealand and
Australian Land Company was formed by the amalgamation of
these holdings, the company's interests in Australia being
in the form of large pastoral holdings. The new organisation
embarked on a programme of further buying, but its farming
operations did not prove very profitable and in 1867 Thomas
Brydone who had a wide measure of experience in estate
management, came out from Scotland to reorganise affairs.
By that time the company owned seven large properties -
Edendale, Clydevale, Kawarau, Moeraki, Totara, Ardgowan, and
Kurow, as well as a number of smaller ones.
  James Morton also had interests in another organisation,
the Canterbury and Otago Association which owned five
properites - Acton, the Levels, Pareora, Hakataramea in
Canterbury, and one Deep Dell in Otago - all of which proved
very profitable. In 1865 a young man, William Saltau
Davidson, had come out to New Zealand in this company's
service and by 1878 was overseeing all it's affairs in New
Zealand. In that year by special Act of the Imperial
Parliment the two organisations were amalgamated, with
Davidson the manager in Scotland and Brydone in New Zealand.
The importance of these two men lies in their role in the
establishment of the frozen meat industry. The company
itself faced some difficulties immediately after the
amalgamation, as the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank,
in which Morton was involved, created some lack of
confidence in the company's position.
  Apart from its pioneering work in the establishment of the
frozen meat and dairy industries, the company's efforts
during the 1880s were devoted to the profitable management
of its holdings, the selling of land being less attractive
on a falling market. In the 1890s and the 1900s, the company
disposed of its agricultural holdings in New Zealand, a
number being acquired by the Government as part of the land
for settlement scheme, the balance of the Levels estate
being so aquired in 1903.

[Source: Encyclopedia of NZ, 1966]