Hill and Stewart were a chain of appliance and electronics stores in the Auckland Region of New Zealand, which began in the 1950s and closed in January 2010.
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Origins
The company was founded by St John Hill and John Stewart. Hill had a secondhand appliance shop in Wyndham Street, Auckland CBD in the early 1950s. They gained a franchise to sell Fisher and Paykel appliances, and opened their first shop in Queen Street in 1951.
The business was successful, and opened new stores in Karangahape Road, Takapuna and Newmarket over the next few years. At its peak, there were ten stores around Auckland.
Stewart's home phone number appeared on the chain's advertisements for many years, so that customers could contact him directly with any problems they had. Few people actually rang him, and those who did were unfailingly polite.
Decline
All but the Takapuna store were sold to owner-operators by the early 1980s, but still operated under the Hill and Stewart name. The Takapuna store was sold by Stewart in 1987.
The chain was purchased by JB Hi-Fi in 2006. JB set up its own network of nine stores around the North Island, and when leases on the last four Hill and Stewart stores expired in 2010, decided not to renew them.