George Stead

George Gatonby Stead (17 August 1841 – 29 April 1908) was a notable New Zealand grain merchant, racehorse owner and breeder, and businessman.

Royse was an experienced grain merchant and shipping agent, with Australian connections through his uncle Joseph Darwent.

[9] The boom ended in 1878 when the City Bank of Glasgow collapsed, which led to credit drying up on the London market.

This reduced the funding available to New Zealand, and with many activities dependent on borrowing, and many landowners heavily indebted, the credit shortage hit hard, compounded by falling wool prices.

It was bankrupt by 1884, due to poor grain harvests in 1882 and 1883,[1] and the New Zealand financial downturn that had deepened, and turned into a long depression, lasting to the mid-1890s.

[6] Although the company was bust, Stead and Cunningham personally weathered the financial storm, and eventually repaid the New Zealand shareholders in full.

He was a proprietor of the Theatre Royal in Christchurch and was involved in the establishment of the Tai Tapu and Central Dairy Factories.

[1] In 1877, he promoted the idea of having the Riccarton Racecourse Siding built to make the horse racing ground more accessible, and to increase turnover.

[17] He launched and promoted the patriotic movement that raised the funds to provide and equip a troop of 110 mounted men, "The NZ Roughriders", for the South Africa war.

They were members of the Third Contingent, the first privately funded troops of the war, who sailed from Lyttelton aboard the s.s. Knight Templar, in February, 1900.