The New Zealand tannery industry

Abstract

"There is nothing like leather. Man is unlikely to attain to the 'ars perfecta' of nature; and whilst it is true that leather is a manufactured product, impossible without the art of man, its basis is a product of nature of wondrous structure and beauty". "Leather" by John W. Waterer p. 25 Tanning is the process of converting skins and hides into leather and I have chosen as the subject of this thesis a study of the tannery industry in New Zealand. This country of ours is, however, a comparatively young one with a little more than a century of European occupation whereas the origin of tanning lies buried in antiquity. Furthermore, the development of the industry as with industry generally in New Zealand, has received its greatest encouragement and impetus in the years of the twentieth century although the beginnings of industry can be traced to the latter half of the nineteenth. A brief examination of the discovery and growth of tanning in world history is appropriate to a better understanding of the industry in New Zealand and this I propose to do at an early stage.