Lyon and Blair, Engravers, Steam b&w photographic printers, Lithographers and Stationery Supplies. Lambton Quay, 1895 [electronic resource]

Lyon and Blair, Engravers, Steam b&w photographic printers, Lithographers and Stationery Supplies. Lambton Quay, 1895.

Lyon & Blair was an old and established company which began life as a bookselling and stationery shop on Lambton Quay in 1840. It was founded by William Lyon, one of the town's original settlers, who was a newspaperman, politician, and founder of the Wellington Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute Library. Lyon's son was joined in the family business by a Scottish compatriot, John Rutherford Blair, in 1874. Blair helped the firm diversify and soon Lyon & Blair was renowned throughout the colony for printing works by Tregear and Aubert, for their excellent colour lithography, for their pamphlets which featured social reform and political themes, and for periodical publications including The Monthly Review and the Journal of the Polynesian Society. In 1894, Blair sold the thriving business to Whitcombe & Tombs.

Further Reading:

• John Muir, "Headpieces and fairy tales: Wellington's Lyon & Blair, fl 1874-1894: an annotated bibliography" Victoria University of Wellington , New Zealand: MLIS research project, ( 1998.)