https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/lifestyle-ente...to-colourful-history

In 1879 they sold out to their interests to the New Zealand Paint Company which five years later sold to William Washbourn who operated the NZ Haematite Paint Company up the Parapara Valley Rd with his sons Harry and Arty who inherited it and continued it until 1906. This company produced high quality paint pigments that were a quarter of the cost of imported oxides.
New Zealand Railways became their best customer, virtually every wagon and railway shed in the country painted with their reddish-brown line. A brighter colour ended up on hundreds of woolsheds around the country, but the company's attempts to make a bright red roof paint for the domestic market was unsuccessful. At the height of the paintwork's production, Australia took around half the paint they produced.


https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/11012138...ew?cfpid=24010701244

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-NHSJ03_05-t1-body1-d2-d5.html