Historic HB: Griffiths Footwear to shut after 108 years in business

Griffiths Footwear employees in 1949. From left: M Corkery, Jean Howard, Charles Griffiths, Margaret Arbuckle, Lorna Badland and Joyce Weller. Credit: Charlie Griffiths

March 30 will mark the closure of Griffiths Footwear which is in its 108th year of business and remarkably has had just four owners over this time.

The business was started by Welshman Charles Griffiths, who had arrived in New Zealand in 1912 with wife Bessie and son Rhys.

After initially settling in the West Coast of the South Island and operating a boot store there, he moved to Hastings and set up a similar business with a Mr Coffey, which opened on March 14, 1914, on Heretaunga St West (part of the BNZ building footprint now). The Griffiths family also shared a home with the Coffey family, but after a year Charles bought out Mr Coffey's share of the house and business after difficult trading.

Charles was up against other footwear businesses such as Hannah's – then still a family-owned business under the control of William Hannah (founder Robert Hannah's brother) in Hawke's Bay. (Robert Hannah coincidentally also began his boot store on the West Coast).

A theme emphasised from the business' start was getting the right fit of the boot and shoe for the customer, and also the longevity of the item they sold. Boots were the mainstay for most men in those days.

With the footpaths and roads being rather rough in those days, repairs of boots was a brisk business as many could not afford to replace them after wear and tear.

The business prospered, and would meet its severest challenge, along with most other Hawke's Bay businesses, on Tuesday, February 3, 1931, when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck.

When I interviewed Charlie Davis, the third owner of Griffiths Footwear in 2006, he had a photo from the collection of Charles Griffiths of an employee ‒ a young girl he believed was killed in the store building but didn't know her name. I set about trying to find her, and established it was 21-year-old Gwen Butler.

Griffiths building was not unusual for the period of being unreinforced masonry (and also suffered damage from the next door BNZ's falling parapets).

It appears all of the staff got out of the building unscathed. However, between the first earthquake and a large aftershock occurring 30 seconds later, Gwen, I understood, was sent back in by an office lady to retrieve the cash takings. Gwen never came out alive when the aftershock struck.

Arthur Hood, Gwen's fiancée, worked as a mechanic at Williams and Kettle's garage in Market St, and it was the descendants from Arthur who told me what had occurred.

Gwen's body had been removed to the makeshift morgue to the Hastings YMCA in Market St, and it was there that Arthur with his father identified Gwen. The Hood family still have in their possession photos that summer taken of Arthur and Gwen in Te Awanga.

Gwen is buried in the Havelock North cemetery.

Like many store owners, Charles' store was subject to looting of stock on the day of the earthquake, with looters risking their lives to take what stock they could see.

As the building was too unsafe for entry, Charles had to wait until the sailors of the HMS Diomede had detonated the building and then (as shown) search through the rubble for shoes to take back to his home in Hastings St, where a store would operate out of his garage.

Some of the looters who had managed to only find one of a pair of shoes turned up to the garage cheekily looking for the missing shoe. One man asked if Charles had a boot of a certain size and colour "for a one legged man they knew". Charles, with a grin, said "why don't you just bring the other one to me".

Temporary premises were found in Market St made of corrugated iron and wood before rebuilding took place in the pre-earthquake location.

A young Charlie Davis had started work as a grocery delivery boy in 1950 and a customer was Bessie Griffiths – the wife of Charles. Bessie would recommend Charlie to her husband as a potential employee.

Upon meeting young Charlie, Charles took him aside and said, "Son, start with me, and you'll have a job for life." The impact on Charlie of that moment ‒ who would spend 54 years in the business - was still vivid in his memory when he told me that story with tears in his eyes in 2006.

Charlie's time with Charles Griffiths would be short-lived when in 1953 Charles Griffiths passed away unexpectedly.

In the days before a proliferation of chain stores and absentee owners, many local business owners adhered to an unspoken social contract with the community to give back on the basis of the custom that afforded their prosperity.

Charles Griffiths was one of those, and served as a hospital board member, visiting the sick without fail every Sunday afternoon. Those who struggled financially were looked after on generous repayment terms, or occasionally at no cost.

Syd O'Neill, who had started as an office junior with Griffiths, bought the business. And when he also died suddenly in 1969, Charlie Davis became owner.

The business shifted to its present location in Heretaunga St in the late 1970s.

Martin and Kaye Pipe, who purchased the business from Charlie Davies in 2004 will close the business on March 30 after a sale of the business could not be achieved.

I think Charles Griffiths would be pleased at not only how long the business lasted, but those who carried the business on.

Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a contract researcher and commercial business writer of Hawke's Bay history. Follow him on facebook.com/michaelfowlerhistory