Story: Household services

Horse-drawn milk deliveries

A horse drags a milk float up the top of Wellington’s Abel Smith St in 1951. There were some horses still on the milk run in Wellington in the 1960s, but most milkmen had trucks by the 1950s and 1960s.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand Free Lance Collection (PAColl-0785)

Reference: PAColl-5469-025

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Jane Tolerton, Household services – Home deliveries, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/21795/horse-drawn-milk-deliveries (accessed 11 June 2026).

Story by Jane Tolerton, published 25 November 2009.

Comments

Rick Burgess
29 November 2017

I remember a white horse like this in the early fifties. His name was Rajah. We use to visit him at the Milk Department stables in Tory Street