This postcard shows the T. Parkins Butchery wagon.
This postcard was sent to Miss Lucy Ethel Baker, later Wilby, and posted to her c/- Mrs Parkins Butchers, Palmerston North. Thomas and Mary Parkins lived on Milson Line. Their daughter Mary Ann was born c.1866 in Goukeby, Lincolnshire, England, and married Walter Cecil Baker, having 3 daughters and 2 sons. Lucy was the oldest and when their second child was born Lucy went to live on the farm with Thomas and Mary, spending much of her younger life with them. Lucy worked in the butchers shop for Thomas.
Thomas traded as Parkins and Attfield in 52 The Square as a butchery from 1900-1903, then on his own. Thomas was granted a slaughtering licence on his Milson Line farm by the Kairanga County Council in 1903. Later Thomas started the Kairanga Meat Co., recorded as being at 52 The Square (information found in the Meat Vendors register 1923 to 1928).
