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Berry Family at 469 Main Street

Description: This image is believed to depict, from left: Rimu (Reme) Perkins, her son Graham Wynton Perkins, (b.1938), Berry family patriarch Edwin Daniel Berry, Mary Elizabeth Berry (nee Ridland), her husband Francis (Frank) Leslie Berry (brother of Reme, son of Edwin), and Frank and Mary's two daughters Margaret Elizabeth and Frances Ruth Berry.

The Berry family was headed by Edwin Daniel and Elizabeth Berry (m. 1897). Their five children were Rimu Ruahine Victoria, (later Mrs Perkins, b.1899), Edwin John Horace (b.1898), Francis (Frank) Leslie, Zenas (Zean) Jefferson (b. 1906) and Tryphena (Triff) Harriet Elizabeth (b. 1910). Tryphena was a promising young art student and attended art school in London but was killed during an air raid in 1941.

Berry Engineering was established in 1907 by Edwin senior in Main Street, as E. D. Berry General Engineer but as the business grew, it moved to Ferguson Street, later expanding up Ashley Street. All three of the Berry sons worked for the company – Frank trained as a tinsmith, Zean as a refrigeration engineer and Edwin Jnr as a welder. Frank became the senior partner in the mid-1930s when Edwin snr began missionary work in Fiji. The business was responsible for several patents and manufactured a wide variety of metal equipment for the dairy and brewing industries and was later known as Mauri Refrigeration and Protech Engineering.