Garrity Bros 130 Years

GARRITY BROS

CELEBRATING 130 YEARS PROUDLY SERVING WAIRARAPA

SINCE 1893

Message from the Garritys FROM THE BEGINNING

April 2023 marks the 130 TH anniversary of Garrity Bros, Greytown’s family-run trucking business which began with draughthorses and now proudly sports a ˜ eet of over 12 signature dark blue trucks.

Fourth generation owners of the business, cousins Rodney Garrity and Ian Garrity, have owned Garrity Bros together since 1989.

“Garrity Bros is all about the peoplesatisÿ ed customers and happy drivers. Some farming families have worked with Garritys through all four generations of Garrity owners,” Rodney says. “I love the job and the connection with the farmers, and I’m passionate about trucks – new and old.”

Transport plays a signiÿ cant role in supporting the farming community in the Wairarapa. And Garrity Bros truck drivers love their work.

“One of our drivers, Lance McHardy, has

worked for three generations of Garritys,” Ian says. “And it’s quite common for drivers to work for Garritys for 40 or more years.”

Rodney says: “Right from the beginning, Garritys carted whatever came its way. That, combined with our focus on customer satisfaction and our belief in our drivers, has helped Garritys grow in new directions and endure over the decades.”

John Garrity, who owned the business with Martyn and Warren Garrity before Rodney and Ian picked up the reins,

once noted that Garritys have always regarded their workers as key to providing a great service to customers. There was a time, for example, when George, James and Cecil Garrity, the sons of founder Samuel Garrity, decided to cut their own wages by 5 pounds a week during a downturn, rather than put o˛ any sta˛ . They knew that “if they were loyal to the men, the men would be loyal to them,” John wrote.

Ian and Rodney Garrity have not only worked together for nearly 50 years at Garritys, but they’ve also travelled the world together. “We know a fair bit

about each other and are good cobbers.” They agree they’re well suited to carry on in the business of being rural carriers where you “have to o˛ er a specialised service but also be prepared to undertake all sorts of jobs at all sorts of hours, day, or night.”

“We are grateful for the support not only from our loyal customers and sta˛ but also from our friends, families and, especially, our wives.”

Samuel Garrity (Sam), the founder of what is now known as Garrity Bros, arrived in New Zealand in 1875 and formally established the business in 1893. He had the foresight to build up a team of three Clydesdale draught horses which was instantly in demand from local farmers for jobs such as hauling Sam’s reaper and binder through crops of oats, carting dray loads of sheaves, and building stacks of oats.

When the stacks were cut for cha˛ (for horse feed), Sam was hired to cart the bagged cha˛ to local farmers and to the Greytown railway. Sam ÿ rst used a horse-and-dray for carting. It wasn’t long, however, before he was able to invest in a horse-drawn lorry.

Hay was another farming commodity Sam was called upon to cart. Sam saw an

opportunity in the supply and delivery of metal for the streets of Greytown, but his tender lodged with the Greytown Borough Council in the 1890s was beaten by another tender that was cheaper by only one penny a yard.

Sam’s activity with his three horses and dray was ÿ nanced through his farm account at the Bank of New Zealand, Greytown. On 10 April 1893, a separate account was opened at the bank for the carrying and carting activities. It is from this point that Garrity Bros dates its beginning, although it wasn’t known by that name until three of Sam’s ÿ ve boys (George, James, and Cecil) joined the business. 130 years later, the company still operates this same account.

The company grew to 40 drayhorses, many drays, spring carts, horse-drawn

lorries, and a variety of implements. The company was hired for ploughing and other agricultural jobs, general cartage, river protection works, and cartage of metal for Featherston County’s roadsthey won that tender and many others going forward!

Bigger premises were required to accommodate the increasing numbers of horses and vehicles and so, just before WWI started in 1914, the Garrity’s bought 80 acres in Humphries Street, Greytown. The yard is still there today with 12 recognisable dark blue Garrity Bros trucks for carting bobby calves, fertiliser, hay, metal and more. And the phone keeps ringing as Wairarapa’s farming community works with the Garrity Bros to keep the wheels turning for business, the community, and the nation.

RODNEY, DONNA, DOROTHY AND IAN GARRITY

GARRITY BROS SLOPER COMMER 1956

GARRITY BROS

CELEBRATING 130 YEARS

PROUDLY SERVING WAIRARAPA SINCE 1893

Spotlight: FOUR GENERATIONS OF GARRITY BROS

The Garrity dynasty and the trucking business Garrity Bros have become Wairarapa ÿ xtures over the last 130 years, since Samuel Garrity started it all in the late 1800s.

SAMUEL GARRITY (Sam) was born 14 August 1854 in County Tyron, Ireland.

The oldest child and a rebel, he ran away at a young age to join the army. In 1875, he arrived in New Zealand on the ship Collingwood, which was said to have had “much sickness on board” and “death had been very busy amongst the immigrants during the voyage from London” from typhoid, ‘scarlatina’, and a man overboard.

Sam ÿ rst worked with a railway construction gang but soon moved to Wairarapa and found employment on Waiorongomai Station with the Matthews.

He married Mary Jane Wiggins (daughter of a pioneer farmer) at Greytown on 25 October 1883 and they settled into Bank View, a farm at the end of Kemptons Line in Greytown. By 1899, they had produced ÿ ve sons and three daughters. Sam died at Morisons Bush in 1923, aged 68 years.

Sam and Mary’s children were Isabella, Eliza, Rebecca, James, Allan, George, James, and Cecil.

From after WWI, the three brothers George, Cecil and James took their father’s business to a new level - forging an enduring partnership.

GEORGE WILLIAM BRATTIN

GARRITY was born 19 October 1890 married Ruby Humphries in 1919, and died in 1981.

The couple had ÿ ve children. George died many years after his brothers and partners James and Cecil.

George’s nephew John says, “the remaining brother George was at a bit of loss [after his brothers died] – he’d spent such a large part of his life with his two brothers that he really missed them when they were gone.”

CECIL SAMUEL GARRITY was born 22 September 1897 married Mary Wyeth in 1926, and died in 1969. The couple had six children including Martyn and Warren. Cecil su° ered a stroke in 1964, making him unable to work at the ÿ rm any longer.

JAMES THOMAS GARRITY

(Jimmy) was born 22 August 1894, married Ivy Maxwell in 1926, and died in 1966. The couple had four children including John.

Martyn, Warren and John bought the business in 1966, christening it Garrity Brothers Limited.

MARTYN SAMUEL GARRITY

was born 19 March 1926 married Christina Lukies (Chrissy) in 1954, and died in 2001. The couple had two children, Annette and Rodney.

WARREN GEORGE GARRITY was born 21 January 1928 married (Betty) Hilda Twort in 1950, and died in 1986. The couple had four children, Faye, Janice, Peter, and Ian.

JOHN CARLTON GARRITY was born 29 September 1935 married Lilian Marshall in 1960, and the couple had two children together. John worked for the business carting hay until 1978, when he switched to focusing on dayto-day operations. John Garrity became Mayor of Greytown Borough Council in 1983, and Mayor of South Wairarapa District in 1989, at which point he sold his shares in the ÿ rm.

Cousins Rodney and Ian have both worked for Garrity Bros for nearly 50 years. In 1989, they bought the ÿ rm o° Martyn, Warren and John, renaming it Garrity Brothers 1990 Limited

RODNEY SAMUEL GARRITY was born 16 October 1956 married Donna Swanney in 2003.

Rodney has twin girls Kylee and Keryn, and a son Clinton, who has worked for Garrity Bros carting hay.

IAN RICHARD GARRITY was born 19 June 1953. He married Dorothy-Joy Timmins in 1981 and they have two sons, Jade and Blake.

Jade worked at Garritys for ten years, driving a general truck and fertiliser spreader: “His years of work here are very much appreciated” Ian says. Blake currently works for Garrity Bros and has been there for 19 years.

“We couldn’t do without him,” Ian says.

GARRITY BROS

CELEBRATING 130 YEARS PROUDLY SERVING WAIRARAPA

SERVING WAIRARAPA

SINCE 1893

Meet the 2023 team

RODNEY & DONNA GARRITY

Having worked for Garritys since 1973, and co-owned it since 1989, Rodney is not going anywhere.

“School and didn’t get on all that well,”

Rodney says, but he got his School Certiÿ cate anyway and, although under-age, achieved his HT licence as well. He started driving for Garritys aged just 17 and has been there ever since.

“My ÿ rst job was carting 80 ewes from Alfredton to Western Lake. In my ÿ rst truck, a 1966 petrol International, I spent a lot of time

carting metal, hay, and bagged grain.” He’s still behind the wheel today, now driving from one end of the North Island to the other in the ÿ rm’s Globetrotter Volvo. He’s away all week, sleeping in the truck or a house in a yard in Mangaweka. “The trucks got a TV set, a microwave, a fridge/freezer. It’s very nice.”

Donna has worked in the ÿ rm for 19 years. With the help of her sidekick Mack (of course her dog is named after a truck) she takes care of all the accounting and administration.

Rodney says, “It’s reassuring knowing that Donna has such a close eye on the ÿ nances.

She’s integral to the business.”

IAN & DOROTHY GARRITY

Ian, together with Cousin Rodney, have worked for Garritys for 50 years and co-owned it outright for nearly 35 years. Ian now runs the day-to-day operations of the ÿ rm, having given up driving trucks in 2010.

“The ÿ rst memories in my life are associated with Garrity Bros. My ÿ rst job for the ÿ rm, in September 1974, was collecting calves. I drove a 1972 Commer Perkins truck. Right from when I was a child, was never

BLAKE GARRITY

Son of Ian Garrity, Blake started hanging out with the Garrity trucks and labouring on the hay as a high school student. At about age 22, in 2004, he started driving full-time for Garrity Bros. For a few years, Blake drove a general tipper truck with bulk sides, silage bin and stock crates – each day involved a di° erent type of work.

LANCE M c HARDY

Now aged 83, and still driving, Lance started his apprenticeship aged 20, working at Garritys for Rodney and Ian’s grandfathers carting stock, hay, metal and spreading.

Unaccountably nicknamed ‘baldy’ ever since he was a lad (and still owning a full head of hair), Lance was born and bred in the Wairarapa.

“I’ve worked for three generations of Garritys,” he says.

“There were great times with Cecil and Martyn,” he reminisces. “After a day on the hay, we’d go o° and have a beer.”

KEVIN LETT

Starting with Garrity Bros in 1996, Kevin Lett (‘Letty’) drives a Mercedes 4x4 spreader truck. The ‘Benz in Blue’, as the truck is called, mainly does local runs although sometimes it goes for a run over the Remutakas.

Before working for Garrity Bros, Kevin spent eight years as a dairy farmer, worked on a cattle station in Aussie

EVAN BROOKS

happier than when I was in the cab of my dad’s truck, seeing new things, driving down new roads.” In 1986 he started driving a brand-new HINO and stuck with it until he went “onto the desk”, still driving occasionally on a weekend.

“I couldn’t have done any of it without the support of my wife, Dorothy,” Ian says. “She is my right-hand woman. She cared for our two boys while was away driving. She’s always helping in the yard, organising smoko, tidying up. I can’t thank her enough.”

Since 2011, Blake has driven a dedicated Volvo stock truck called ‘Moovin Blue’, working locally and around the lower North Island.

“It’s a great place to work,” he says. “There’s a variety of jobs. You engage with farmers. And carting the livestock keeps you ÿ t and active – no need to go to the gym.”

He’s pretty laid back.

“The transport industry teaches you quickly to be conÿ dent in the decisions you make. To back your own decisions.”

From time to time he’s had a break away from the Garritys, going o° to drive milk tankers or do something else. Each time he’s wanted to come back, the next generation of Garritys welcomed him.

“You couldn’t ÿ nd a better ÿ rm,” he says. “They look after you and treat you well. I’ve never had an argument with any of them.”

Now on one of the HINO fertiliser spreaders called ‘Accuracy in Blue’, instead of carting bobby calves. Lance enjoys the work and the people. “I’m a bit slow now to chase the cattle up the ramp. By the time I get there, they’re on their way back down.”

Evan comes from a Greytown trucking business owned by his family. To begin with, his grandfather worked for the Garrity’s and, in 1937, drove their ÿ rst Chevy truck. His father then worked for Garrity Bros from 1949 to 1953 before establishing his own trucking business, R.E Brooks.

Evan started work for his dad in 1974. When he was with R.E. Brooks, Evan worked closely with Garritys on metaling the roads and building stopbanks for the Wairarapa catchment board. The family business was sold in 2019 and Evan

for three years, and drove trucks for another ÿ rm. Born and bred in Featherston, Kevin loves his job. “I get to deal with farmers every day. There’s an element of being your own boss, too, although Ian does all the organising. I’ve never had a cross word with anyone in the ÿ rm. They’re a family and they treat us like we’re part of it.”

went back to work for the Garritys.

“I’m retirement age,” he jokes, “but trucking is in my blood. Garrity Bros gave me a job in 2019.” He trucks all sorts of commodities: stock, silage, baleage, metal, you name it. For Garrity Bros, he drives a trusted HINO with nearly a million kms on the clock and, because he mainly drives around the Wairarapa, Southern Hawkes Bay and Manawatu areas, he gets to go home at night. What more could you ask?

“I’m doing the same job I’ve always done, just with a di° erent coloured truck.”

GARRITY

BROS CELEBRATING 130 YEARS PROUDLY SERVING WAIRARAPA

SINCE 1893

MEET THE 2023 TEAM

TIM PHILLIPS

Tim’s always driven trucks in the Wairarapa - since 1987 in fact – and has been with Garrity Bros for 13 years.

He drives a HINO multi-purpose dropsider called ‘True Blue’. “You can put stock crates on it,” he says. “Or if you put the sides on, you can cart metal or lime.

Turn it into a ˜ at deck, and hay or baleage can be carted.”

Tim mainly does local runs, or sometimes to Taranaki or Hawkes Bay.

“I like working here. They go out of their way to treat clients well. They’re obliging and go the extra mile. And the locals are loyal to them in return.”

MARK

JOHNSON

Semi-retired farmer, Mark started driving for Garrity Bros three years ago in a HINO dropsider named ‘Blue to the Bone’.

Originally from a Taranaki farm, Mark

settled in the Wairarapa in 1994 when he bought a farm here. Before that, he drove trucks. He’s a good ÿ t with Garrity Bros.

“It’s all local work for me now,” he says. “No sleeping in the truck.”

Mark carts stock, silage, fertiliser, metal for roads, “whatever is needed”.

JONTY CAHILL

Jonty’s been with Garrity Bros for two years and has worked his way up to driving one of the “big trucks”, a 54 tonne 700 horsepower Volvo called ‘Midnight Blue’.

He’s known as ‘boy’ at Garritys because he’s the youngest by a country mile – the next youngest is Blake and he’s got 18 years on Jonty. Jonty’s a very easy-going type of person. “I suppose they could call me worse names than ‘boy’. Midnight Blue has the capacity to cart bigger loads and go longer distances.”

Jonty drives round the North Island including to Wellington, Hawkes Bay, and Taranaki. He sleeps in the truck from time to time and loves it.

“There’s variety and there’s freedom. I love driving the stock because I’m working with animals, going out to the coast or into the bush every other day and getting o˛ the highway. get to see parts of the country that most people will never see.”

Previously living and working in Feilding, Jonty and his girlfriend Tayla (a district nurse) are now settled in the Wairarapa. Before working for Garritys, Jonty built stock crates for trucks.

“That’s how I met Rodney and started going for rides on the weekends. Well, that kind of snowballed out of control and now I work for him. I’m learning more all the time. I love the job more and more as go.”

RICHARD HERRICK

Back in the day, mechanic Richard ran his own business Richard Herrick Transport Repairs. He started working on the Garrity trucks 25 years

˜ e journey of the garrity trucks

The Garritys love their trucks.

Garrity Bros bought its ÿ rst motor lorry for £1,600 in 1924: a Leyland truck with a hydraulic hoist. The only place to buy petrol for the truck was in Wellington.

Once a month, someone would drive the truck over the hill to load up dozens of four-gallon tins of petrol and bring them back to stack in the benzine shed. The return trip took all day.

In the photo top left, Rodney Garrity demonstrates using the fertiliser spreader attached to the restored 1937 Chevy. Bags of lime are tipped into the Munro top dresser, invented by the uncle of the famous New Zealand motorcyclist Bert Munro.

The photos below show the dashing young Garrity brothers driving just after

WWII. Martyn, leaning on Garritys ÿ rst Austin truck, is wearing army clothes, having just returned from the J-Force in Japan. The hay at that time was baled into characteristic oblong shapes. Garrity Bros bought their second Austin truck in 1948 for £650.

The ÿ rst truck Rodney and Ian bought when they took over Garrity Bros in 1989 was the splendid HINO shown bottom right. In 1990, they went to the bank manager, cap in hand for funds to buy a HINO. “There was a run-out model going cheap because newer models were coming onto the market,” Ian recalls.

“The bank manager said we shouldn’t worry about the price; we should buy the ‘shoe that ÿ ts’. So, we borrowed the funds to buy the newer model instead.”

At one time, it was usual for a truck to weigh in at about 7 tons. Dodges and trailers with 33 cattle were overloaded,

underpowered, and very slow. “Today,” Rodney says, “they’re usually 54 tonnes. They’ve got higher horsepower and bigger crates carting 50 or more cattle, no problem.”

Another big change for trucking over the last 100 or so years is the move away from restrictive regulation. From the 1930s to 1983, the government protected the rail network by limiting the distance trucks could carry goods: 30 miles (50 km) in 1966, increased in steps to 94 miles (150km) by 1977. In 1983, the 150km cap was removed. The licensing system also ended “It had controlled which goods could be carried, and where to.

“I remember my ÿ rst job after deregulation. It was a load of bobby calves to Cambridge – and didn’t need a permit!” Ian says.

From 1983, the road was clear, and the country got moving: bigger trucks, longer distances. Just in time for Rodney and Ian to take Garrity Bros forward.

103,709 hectares

RESTORED 1937 GARRITY BROS CHEVY

MARTYN, RODNEY’S FATHER, WITH NO. 1 AUSTIN LOADED WITH HAY. 1947

WARREN, IAN’S FATHER, WITH NO. 3 RED LEYLAND LOADED WITH HAY. 1947.

FIRST TRUCK BOUGHT BY RODNEY AND IAN GARRITY

1995 HINO PHOTOGRAPHED AROUND 2000, NOW CARRYING SQUARE BALES OF HAY

GARRITY BROS

CARRYING 1,000 BALES OF HAY OVER THE HILL TO THE HUTT, RESTING AT JIM’S CORNER. EARLY 2000s

Part of the backbone of the Wairarapa

The versatility and ˜ exibility of Garrity Bros has been a feature of the company right from the start.

In February 1938, for example, they had the job of picking up a crawler tractor from the wharf in Wellington for local farming family, the Montgomeries.

And back in the day when there was no Desert Road, they drove to Auckland with a load of furniture via New Plymouth. In 1985 alone, the Garritys did 120 furniture shifting jobs, driving all over the country.

The many facets of the Garrity Bros

at Kourarau near Gladstone and carted to the destination farm. It was spread by three horses and a Duncan at spreader mounted on dray wheels.

The Munro spreader attached to the Garrity Bros 1937 Chevy made lighter work of spreading out the bags of lime. Nowadays, fertiliser spreading is computerised.

The 1970s to the 1990s saw the boom of the Greytown orchards, with three packhouses in Greytown.

Garritys carted truckloads of apples to Wellington for distribution around New Zealand.

In 1990 they began carting apples to Hastings for overseas export.

Other commodities carted by Garrity Bros over its 130 years of being part of the backbone of the Wairarapa include livestock, hay, grains, cha° , wool, timber, coal, manure, fertiliser, silage, and metal for roads.

Supporting

farmers, no matter the job, is the key to the Garritys successful business model.

Cecil Garrity took on the bobby calf run 85 years ago in 1938, Martyn carried it on from 1949 to 1989, and Rodney has been doing it ever since a great example of Garrity Bros longevity, reliability, and expertise.

Rodney and Ian have seen many changes in the transport of bobby calves.

“Originally, we’d pick up the calves and weigh them at the gate. The minimum weight was 24kg each. Then we’d take them to Waingawa freezing works.”

Then bar codes came along. “We were no longer required to weigh the calves,” says Rodney, “but we still had a system to lift each one up into the truck.

The regulations have changed again and now the calves are put onto loading bays so they can walk straight onto the trucks.”

Ian recalls the time in 1978 when the closest meat works was Waitara because Waingawa wasn’t killing. Over eight weeks, he and Rodney carted 8,000

JIM LAIRD Driver Training Ltd

calves to the works: each return run was 800kms. “Only three calves died,” he says.

“We cart bobby calves all over from Pirinoa to north of Dannevirke and deliver them to Whanganui.”

Fertiliser spreading

Before the Munro spreader came along, lime was carted from the lime quarry

“Farmers email us a map of the farm,” says Rodney. “We transfer it to the truck and o° it goes.” Ian says: “We’re spreading a natural product, dolomite, with our newest truck.”

Hay, grains, and silage

Baled hay was carted by Garritys from the time of the ÿ rst stationary baler, powered by a belt from a traction engine. Three gangs of men worked with the stationary balers.

Fast forward a decade or two and the Garritys were running three balers and two Sam Hay elevators. Through the Farmers’ Co-operative Distributing Company, Garrity Bros became known in the 1960s to 1980s for carting hay into every dairy farm in the Hutt Valley.

“In one year, 50,000 bales were delivered over the hill in addition to all the paddock to shed hay delivered locally.”

Garrity Bros still carts hay although these days it is baled into big rounds and big squares. And, in the season, “we work closely with silage contractors supplying trucks and trailers,” Rodney says.

Metalling the roads and helping to build bridges

MODERN DAY HINO AND SPREADER STUCK IN THE MUD.

Garrity Bros has a history of helping to build and bring communities together.

Soon after they bought their ÿ rst truck in 1924, Garritys began large scale carting of metal for Featherston County Council. Metaling jobs included the Whakapuni Hill and in Awhea.

When the main road was built through Ahikouka, from North Greytown to the Black Bridge, the Leylands carted stones from Greytown to the crusher and back loaded with crushed metal for the road. In 1926, the Garrittys won the tender to metal the Hinakura Hill and carted girders, piles, and timbers for the

seven bridges built from Whakapuni to Tuturumuri, and up the Tora Road to Brown Hill. Garrity Bros also carried the metal for the concrete work on the bridges, bringing it from Tauherenikau’s crusher because the metal in local rivers was too soft. One of the biggest metaling jobs was ÿ lling the Black Swamp approach to the Kahutara Bridge. The men were there for months. Carting metal back in the day required a truck driver and four pitmen in a navvy gang. The shovels were oiled at the business end and the handle smoothed with a piece of glass. The gang could load a ÿ ve-yard lorry in no time at all. Garrity Bros men were no ordinary men.

Bobby calves

WEIGHING AND LOADING THE BOBBY CALVES BACK IN THE DAY. LATE 1970s.

Part of the

Into the future

Garrity Bros is a well-known and highly respected rural carrier throughout Wairarapa’s farming, local authority, and business communities. The phone doesn’t stop, and the team is ready to go.

The future of heavy transport may include hydrogen powered and electric trucks, “but we’re not there yet,” Blake Garrity says.

These forms of power don’t yet give trucks the range the Garrity’s need. Whatever the form of power, threeyear old Georgia Garrity, daughter of Blake and his partner Kylie, is already staking out her claim with one of the Volvos.

She loves her trucks as much as any adult at Garritys.

The future of Garrity Bros looks assured, although it might need to change its name at some point to include sisters.

THREE˜YEAR OLD GEORGIA GARRITY.

TODAY’S GARRITY BROS TEAM.