M&L’s roots go back a long way
It may surprise you that McMillan & Lockwood have a history and a prehistory, since when a ‘McMillan construction philosophy' has survived over a century of construction in New Zealand, which is basically since the year dot for New Zealand construction.
Apparently ‘old' J L McMillan migrated as an established builder from Dunedin to Wellington in the early 1900s to build the Evans Bay Gas Works for Wellington City (shown in the panoramic photo panel in the PN office foyer, with horses and carts, etc) and the Wellington Tramway Terminus, both high profile contracts in their day.
Subsequently, as the story goes, he had two sons, Jim (‘young Jim'
to us) and Lloyd, who operated as McMillan Bros in the middle 1900s, building
freezing works in the North Island and a number of buildings in the Palmerston
North region. During the 2nd World War years, they were co-opted by the government
to build the big concrete hangar at Ohakea, a mammoth feat for the technology
of the day. A contemporary of theirs at that time, also working for the government,
was a fellow by the name of Jim Fletcher, who also went on to greater things.
Rex McEwan
Chief Estimator
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