We have a quite detailed account of this mill, from Alfred Saunders, an experienced miller in the UK, who returned to Nelson after a few years in Australia, and wrote about the mill:
I was not long in finding out all the changes that had taken place during our absence. One of the things that naturally interested me most was that no less than five mills had been built in the province of Nelson--not one of which was paying interest on the money it had cost. There were a watermill and quite a large wind-mill in the town of Nelson; and, on our old Teetotal Section at Waimea South, a small wind-mill and another water-mill, whilst, close to the sea beach at Richmond, was a very expensive mill using both wind and steam. This last mill had been built by a Mr Eliot (descended from the Admiral Eliot who defended Gibraltar with red hot shot). He was a highly educated man and an engineer, and, unfortunately, he thought that these qualifications were sufficient to enable him to build a mill without advice from anyone.
...I went to Mr Eliot who had begged me many times to come and see what was the matter with his costly mill. The total failure of all that he had attempted had taken all the self-confidence out of him, and I found him in a highly nervous state, and, with all his culture, toiling at manual work harder than any slave. He entreated me, with tears in his eyes, to tell him what was wrong with his mill. He could grind nothing properly with it, he said, and was ashamed to see his customers when they came to take away their flour and bran, as they did nothing but abuse him. I am afraid no one but a miller will understand what I have now to relate; but, as it was a very extraordinary thing, and also marked something like a turning point in my life, I cannot pass it over.
When I reached the mill, Mr Eliot and his assistant were driving two pairs of stones with a nice breeze of wind. The stones were being driven a great deal too fast, and the flour-dressing machine a great deal too slowly, but hardly any progress was being made with either. The wheat from the hoppers had filled up the eyes of the stones and was being thrown over their backs, and very little could, by any device, be persuaded to go through between the two stones to be ground. I said at once:
"I cannot see the furrows of the stones whilst they are going, but there must, I am sure, be something very wrong with them."
Mr Eliot gave me a look of great disappointment as he replied:
"Ah! that cannot be. I did not furrow the stones. They were done by one of the best mill-wrights in England, from whom I bought them, and I can show you that they are furrowed just as the latest book on the subject directs."
So we marched into the house, and he showed me the book, which I found directed the furrows to be just as his were. I said to him:
"I still think your stones would grind as other persons' do, if they were dressed and furrowed properly, but I cannot examine them whilst they are going. If you will get the stones taken up, I will come again to-morrow and tell you what is wrong with them."
He replied despondently: "I have had a dozen persons here who, like you, call themselves millers, and none of them has made anything go better. I am sick and tired of struggling to improve things myself, and, if you will give me £300 for the mill and house that have cost me more than £3000, I will sell them to you."
"I wont buy your mill until I have shown you what is wrong with it, whatever it may be," I said, "but if you still wish to sell it then, I will accept your offer."
I went eagerly to the stones when I reached the mill next morning, and looked carefully over them, and Mr Eliot watched me anxiously as I did so. I felt my face and ears grow hot when I had to tell him that the furrows were too deep and too much behind the centre, but that would only make the wheat go through them all the faster, too fast indeed, and I could find no reason why it did not do so. The face of the weary mill-owner changed from a look of eager expectancy to one of supreme contempt. He spoke never a word, but I could see that he would like to have said:
"Then you are no better than all the other fools who have come here thinking they could put me right."
He turned on his heel and went away, while I sat on the stones like Cowper's spaniel who
Puzzling, set his puppy brains
To comprehend the case.After a time Mr Eliot came back, and asked me somewhat shortly what I proposed to do next.
"I am very much puzzled to know what to do," I said. "The furrows are, as you say, all right, and I can see no reason why the wheat does not go through them even too fast. But there is evidently something very wrong, and find out what it is I must and will, if I stay here for the next month, so I will just dress this pair of stones whilst you drive the other."
Mr Eliot soon got up steam and started one pair of the stones, and the moment he did so I saw what was wrong. The stones were furrowed to go round in one direction, and they were being driven round in the other, so that, as the furrows passed over each other, they pushed the wheat back towards the centre instead of pushing it towards the circumference. When I told Mr Eliot this, he sat down on the hoop of the stone that was going, and groaned aloud. He uttered some very harsh maledictions upon himself and upon all the millers and books he had consulted for the last three years. As soon as he was composed enough, I suggested that he should alter his machinery so as to drive the stones in the direction for which they were furrowed. He said that it would cost a great deal to do so, and that he had no more money to spend. It was, therefore, agreed that I should take a quarter of an inch off the face of one pair of the stones, and put the furrows in the right way--which meant ten days of very unpleasant work for me.
When this was accomplished, I left him easily grinding six bushels an hour, and I promised to come again when the stones wanted dressing. When I did so, I found that he had been grinding all the wheat in his mill at a great rate; but he had not succeeded in dressing any of it; and looked more worn out and dispirited than ever. I told him what was wrong with his dressing machine and how to alter it, but he said:
"If you would only buy this hateful place, I should have enough money to put up a sawmill, which I do understand, at Massacre Bay."
I offered to work for him for a while and see if I could get things to go any better; but he was quite determined to leave, and, when he had signed the conveyance and received his cheque, he went out of the mill with the air of a prisoner escaping from some foul and loathsome dungeon, remarking, with heartfelt fervour, as he said good-bye:
"God grant that I may never see the inside of a flour-mill again!"
It was the very next day, when I had been trying the wind-mill to see if it was of any use, and had been looking most intently up at the sails, that I turned round and saw my brother Edward standing close behind me. I had no idea that he had left England; but he had gone to Adelaide, expecting to find me there, and, failing to do so, had come on to New Zealand. He could not have arrived when his advice and assistance would have been more valuable to me, and it seemed almost as if my guardian angel must have directed him to come to my help.
...I was anxious to show him my purchase, and he soon put on a suit of my mill clothes, and went through that jumble of ridiculous mistakes as systematically as though it had been his investment instead of mine, whilst he laughed very heartily at the history of the backward-driven stones, the slow-driven flour-dresser, the overdriven wind-mill, and all the innumerable blunders made by poor Mr Eliot. It was not to me altogether a laughing matter, as my hurried and almost accidental purchase gave me a great deal of hard mental and physical work for very little pay. Edward seemed to look upon it as his mission to try to solve the hard puzzle of that remarkable mill for me, and he stayed within its walls almost as closely as I did. He hastily went through the other badly constructed mills in the Nelson Province; but he really saw very little of New Zealand. It happened to be very unusually wet whilst he was with us; so that, when he had to hurry back to his own never-before-neglected business, he always retained the idea that New Zealand was a terribly muddy country, where it rained almost incessantly; where every man was a jack of all trades, and where unpractical gentlemen built large houses which they filled with perfectly useless machinery, and called flour-mills.
The wind-mill proved quite useless, and was never tried after the first few days; but I struggled on with the flimsy, old-fashioned, six-horse-power steam engine that would drive only one pair of stones at full work, until the supply of cheap, inferior coal, picked up on the surface of Massacre Bay, was exhausted. I had then to buy English coal, which was so dear that, to make a living wage, it was necessary to charge one shilling and threepence per bushel for grinding, which gave great offence to my customers.
Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 465, 1 February 1851, Page 194
STATISTICS FOR NELSON, 1850.Since the other local mills were all water powered, this report (which noticably does not mention wind power), must be referring to the Richmond mill Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 470, 8 March 1851, Page 6
The following abstract of the Statistics of the Nelson settlement, for the year ending the 31st December, 1850, is published for general information. M. Richmond, Superintendent. Superintendent's Office, Jan. 29, 1851.
Flour Mill ... at Richmond, in course of erection, the property of Mr. H. Eliot Steam & wind power.
The Weather. — After an unusually long drought of nearly two months, we are at length blessed with a most refreshing rain. In some instances however it has come too late, and we fear that the potato crop has suffered. Rain was also much needed for the pastures, which were dreafully burnt up, although there seemed no scarcity of food for stock. Another inconvenience has been experienced by the dryness of the season. The flour mill has not been able to be worked more tban a few hours in the day from a scarcity of water, so that with our barns full of corn, we have literally at times been without bread. The present abundant rain, and the erection of a steam mill, which will be at work in a few days, will soon make the supply of flour plentiful.Coal was in use right from the early days Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 488, 12 July 1851, Page 83
WANTED, TENDERS for the DELIVERY of FIFTY TONS of Massacre Bay COAL, within the next three months, at the Steam Flour Mill, Richmond. H. Eliot. Richmond, July 4.The 1851 stats report the mill as completed: Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 521, 28 February 1852, Page 3
STATISTICS FOR NELSON, 1851.By the time it was being offered for sale, no mention of the windmill is made: Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue XI, 9 October 1852, Page 129
The following Abstract of the Statistics of the Nelson Settlement, for the year ending the 31st December, 1851, is published for general information. M. Richmond, Superintendent. Superintendent's Office, Feb. 26, 1852.
Manufactures, Miness, &c,
Flour Mill, in Nelson, leased to Mr. Campbell. Water power, two pair of stones.
Flour Mill, in Waimea South, the property of Mr. Stratford. Water power, one pair of stones.
Ditto, at Riwaka, the property of Mr. Mickle. Water power, one pair of stones.
Ditto, at Richmond, the property of Mr. H. Eliot. Steam and wind power.
FLOUR MILL for SALE. - To be Sold, the WAIMRA STEAM FLOUR MILL, complete. with THREE DWELLING HOUSES, and THREE ACRES of LAND attached. Apply to Mr. H. Eliot, on the premises, or to A. Fell & Co., Nelson. Richmond, October 2, 1852.The Nelson stats for 1852 record Saunders as the new owner Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 573, 26 February 1853, Page 2
STATISTICS FOR NELSON, 1852.Saunders was soon offering the mill for sale again Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 605, 8 October 1853, Page 4
The following Abstract of the Statistics of the Nelson Settlement, for the year ending the 31st December, 1852, is published for general information. M. Richmond, Superintendent. Superintendent's Office, Feb. 23, 1853.
Manufactures, Mines, &c.
Nelson - Flour Mill, leased to Mr. Campbell. Water power,
Flour Mill, the property of Dr. Bush. Wind power.
Richmond - Flour Mill, the property of Mr. Saunders. Steam and wind power.
Riwaka - Flour Mill, the property of Mr. Miekle. Water power.
Waimea South - Flour Mill, the property of Mr. Stratford. Water power.
Saw Mill, the property of Mr. Martin. Water power.
Saw Mill, the property of Mr. Baigent. Water power.
FOR SALE, Richmond STEAM MILL, or an 8-horse power STEAM ENGINE, THREE ACRES Port LAND, TWO Dwelling HOUSES. &c, &c. The above will be sold either together or separately. Apply on the premises.Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 664, 6 September 1854, Page 1
FOR SALE, ONE 8-HORSE POWER STEAM ENGINE, made by Hughes, Dover-road, London, with boiler, fittings,. &c, complete. The above lies in very little compass, and is well known to have proved a first-rate Engine. Ready for delivery on or after the 1st of next month. Apply to Alfred Saumdees, Richmond Mill. July 8.
Whilst not a success for milling, it seems the windmill was still a landmark 10 years after it was built: Colonist, Volume V, Issue V, 4 July 1862
Waimea Railway
Mr. Baigent agreed with the Provincial Secretary. He was afraid that the line described in the report would have to go on a large amount of private property, and by way of the hills would not be so good as a straight line from the Richmond windmill.
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