Australian women today are blessed
with many more career opportunities than those of previous
generations and it is not unusual to find them in
senior managerial positions or on the boards of all types of
companies.
Feminists may argue that it was largely
their hard work that guaranteed these opportunities for their
daughters, although historians may point out that it was a natural
progression from the major political and social upheavals of two
world wars as well as changing economic times.
However,
if you were to ask any of them if they had heard of Oliver Gilpin and
what his effect had been on the confidence and advancement of women,
it is most likely you would be met with a blank expression, unaware
of the debt we owe to his foresight and enterprise in employing women
in positions of authority when such a thing was almost unheard of.
There
is little legacy of Gilpin remaining today, apart from a few
buildings in Melbourne, a couple of public drinking fountains and his
name on a school dormitory and library. Perhaps only in some
forgotten corner of a rural town in Victoria, Tasmania or the
Riverina of New South Wales will one manage to spot a faded logo
painted on a brick wall, or the cracked lettering “O Gilpin”
still embedded in a pavement where it once graced the entrance of the
town’s main store.
Oliver
Gilpin believed that women were more reliable than men, that they had
exceptional organising ability, and so all of his stores were run by
women. He had no qualms about training them in salesmanship or
promoting them to positions of power either and in 1930, at the
beginning of the Depression, when many other stores were struggling or going broke, his were thriving with the five directors
of his company listed as himself and four women.
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| A full page advert from The Argus 1931 |
A
more cynical approach would be to say that Gilpin employed women
because they were cheaper than men, and that would certainly have
been true of the era. However, once trained, they were often paid
more than men. In the late 1920’s, Gilpin’s were advertising for
“female assistants to fill managerial positions” at the starting
wage of £4.10s (plus commissions) - considerably more than many men
could have hoped to have earned at the time.
Apart
from his all-female board of directors, his company secretary was a
woman, all his buyers were women, as well as his store managers. He
also had other ideas that were radical for the time such as employee
share and gratuity schemes, staff training workshops, company owned
transports, a mail order service combined with a retail business, and
even an ordered recycling of boxes and packaging.
Oliver
Gilpin was born into a dairy farming family near Euroa, Victoria in
1874. At the age of 17, he joined a local drapery firm and then moved
to Melbourne to further his career. Four years later, with some
financial help from his father, he opened his first store in
Korumburra, South Gippsland. Within a year, he had married his first
wife, Anne, and set about buying other properties in the region.
Right
from the start, Oliver’s intention had been to run a chain of
drapery stores in country towns and he was to call himself “The
Great Drapery Bargain Distributor”. In an advertisement announcing
the opening of his new store he stated his motto (the
first of many) as “Small profits and quick returns”. It was a
policy that he maintained throughout his career.
Oliver
soon expanded beyond drapery into general stores selling everything
imaginable from broom-handles to blankets, petticoats to
letter boxes. When the company celebrated its thirty-fifth
anniversary in 1931, there were 91 chain stores in existence across
the country from Dubbo to Mt Gambier - and all managed by women.
The
assistants had a strict dress code of wearing black and at a time
when respectable ladies’ underwear was usually white, oyster or
pink, they had to wear black - mainly so that when climbing ladders
the glimpse of something white was avoided!
Like
most people who ‘think outside the square’, Gilpin also had his
eccentricities. While he was before his time when it came to trusting
in the abilities of women and new marketing methods, he was also
strangely old-fashioned in not rushing to embrace the latest
technology such as cash registers or telephones. The shop assistants
had to carry the cash in their special apron pockets - a risky
occupation at any time - but he was also against credit. This latter
fact may have helped to keep the O. Gilpin chain of stores afloat
during the Depression years.
On
the negative side, Gilpin had little time for
government regulations or other authorities and there is no doubt if he
had survived into the modern retailing era, he would have had violent
clashes with trade unions over wages and conditions even though he
had always paid his employees more than other store owners did.
He
was also exceedingly fond of motivational quotes and had them placed
in strategic positions around his factory and stores: “I lead,
follow who can”; “Keep your mind on your job, otherwise you will
find you have no job to keep” and “Initiative is doing the right
thing without being told”.
Gilpin
was certainly a man of contradictions. He may have been committed to
equal rights for women on a professional level, but he seemed to have
been a less so on personal level, having been married three times and
divorced twice, reputedly putting his second wife out on the street with little warning in order to take up with the third, as
well as rumoured to have mistresses on the side.
He
was also reputed to be bigoted towards Catholics - not an unusual
attitude in his generation and possibly as a result of his Northern
Irish heritage. In his early stores, it was even said that he had a
sign in his window that read: “Redheads and Catholics need not
apply!” (An ironic twist is that, after Gilpin’s death, his mansion was
bought by the Missionary Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart and turned
into a Catholic nunnery.)
In
his later years, Gilpin seemed to have lost his way. He started to
spend more money on overseas travel, cars, and idle entertainments,
and on building a lavish mansion perhaps rather appropriately called
“Idlewylde” in the Melbourne suburb of Balwyn that included a
ballroom, indoor swimming pool, conservatory, aviaries full of exotic
imported birds, a lake with fish, even a windmill intended for
self-sufficient water and power generation. However, the house
remained unfinished when Oliver died in 1942 and he never actually
lived there.
The
business began to suffer when World War 2 broke out and the company
was stuck with large quantities of stock bought from Japan - Gilpin’s
having been one of the first Australian firms to have traded with
Japan in large quantities.
Oliver
had not provided for a proper successor. Without his strong hand
guiding them, bickering broke out between the children and the
directors. The time was ripe for a takeover, and this occurred in
1944 when the Melbourne company Foy & Gibson bought them out.
They, in turn, were bought out by G.J. Coles & Co. Ltd. seven
years later at a price of over one million pounds and it was then
that the O. Gilpin chain of 91 stores finally disappeared off the map
Oliver
Gilpin had strict rules of behaviour for his staff and some of his
moralistic ideas seem quaint and highly restrictive by modern
standards, especially considering his less than blemish-free
private shenanigans. He could appear gruff and inflexible, but he
also understood the importance of fairness and consideration in
reward for duty and loyalty, and remained greatly respected by his
staff. He was generous in giving references and farewell gifts, and
his word was his bond.
The
goodwill and camaraderie continued for many years after the sale of
the stores and large staff reunions took place in towns around
Australia, and some “Gilpin girls” still survive
today although even the youngest will be edging ninety.
According to
his grand-daughter and biographer, Muriel Perry, in accounts of her
discussions with them, they all agreed that they benefited enormously
from their association with Oliver Gilpin and his stores. At a time
when many women were often still seen as second-class citizens, they
were appreciated for their intelligence, for using their initiative,
and ultimately they gained enormous self-confidence and reliance in
their own abilities and, not least, they were trained in business and
management skills that could be transmitted later into other areas of
their lives. As wives and mothers, many of them became community
leaders or otherwise involved in enterprises in their own right.
It
is certain that they will have passed these attributes on to their
own daughters, grand-daughters and great-grand-daughters and that has
to be the most positive legacy of Oliver Gilpin.
* Headline announcing opening of O. Gilpin store in Shepparton, 1908
Acknowledgements - most of this information taken from:
“Just a Pocket For the Money - The Story of Oliver Gilpin and His stores”, Muriel Perry, 1995, Mansfield Newspapers, Molesworth, Victoria.
Not currently in print, the book is still available through various libraries. It is a fascinating historical record that contains photos of the family, the stores, advertisements and transport, and also has numerous images of the many women who worked for Gilpin.
A replica of Gilpin’s
first store was the occasion of a celebration at Korumburra in 1993 at Coal Creek Historical Village.
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| Normanby House, formerly Nyora |
His
first home in the Melbourne area was “Nyora” in the suburb of
Thornbury, now a wedding reception centre, and the Thornbury Bowls Club next door was founded by Gilpin in 1908 and still operates today.
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| Kia Ora (demolished) |
His next
house was “Kia Ora” in the suburb of East Malvern.
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| The Connault, formerly Idlewylde |
“
Idlewylde” his last unfinished mansion is now a luxury retirement home. The Art Deco interiors have been
beautifully restored and maintained as can be seen from the virtual tour and galleries of images on the website.
