On 18th November 1887 Strike & Fairlie's NZ Aerated Water and Cordial Co. Ltd. went into liquidation and became the Wellington Aerated Water Company. On 22nd August 1888 the mortgage on the lease was transferred to The Wellington Aerated Water Company Limited.

The business was voluntarily put into liquidation and was heavily in debt to the Colonial Bank. Matters were complicated when the liquidate, Mr. Kember, offered to purchase the company.

Mr. Alfred. M. Lewis was instructed by the bank to run the company on behalf of the bank until such a time as a buyer could be found, however Mr. Lewis, with the financial assistance of Mr. A. Thomson, a cordial manufacturer of Dunedin, purchased the business from the bank.

The lease to the Lorne Street factory was in the name of Alexander Thomson and the partnership firm of Thomson & Lewis commenced on 23rd July 1889.

In the history of Wellington aerated water trade, there were two companies with the name "Wellington Aerated Water Company". This causes some confusion, but the earlier company always had the word "registered" marked on their bottles. Any bottle with the W.A.W pictorial embossing belongs to the later company that operated from 1914.

The word 'registered' refers to the fact that the company was registered (under the recent Companies Act, 1882), as opposed to using the company's own name as a registered trademark. A registered trademark was an asset as it secured the legal right to use bottles so marked and prevented others from stealing the company's bottles. Interestingly, the company's name was registered as a trade mark after it wound up by Mr. Lewis, in order to secure the right to use the bottles of the company he had just taken over.