50 YEARS WITH FIRM

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26605, 15 December 1951, Page 2

50 YEARS WITH FIRM

Factory Hand To Director

RETIREMENT OF MR P. J. SMITH

Mr P. J. Smith, who joined the firm Of T. J. Edmonds. Ltd., more than 50 years ago as a factory hand, will retire at the end of/this month from the position of factory manager. Mr Smith Is also a director of the firm. Mr Smith joined the firm in September, 1901, when he was 16. Apart from the late Mr T. J. Edmonds, the founder of the firm, and his eldest son, the late Mr T. W. Edmonds, there was then only one other employee beside Mr Smith. Mr Smith left another factory where he was receiving 6s a week to obtain 10s a week. At that time it was a 48-hour week, with no morning tea breaks or smokos.

The factory was then in a small wooden building in Aid wins road. Practically every operation was done by hand, but a manual press and a small mixer were driven by a gas engine. To-day the output of the firm is more in a week than the production of the factory in a whole year in those days. Mr Smith worked at all sorts of factory operations, which stood him in good stead in later days, but at times there was not enough work in the factory to keep him occupied, and he then did odd jobs around the Edmonds homestead, including cleaning windows and chopping wood. In those days Aidwins road was more like a country lane than a city street, said Mr Smith. The road was not properly formed, and wheeled traffic sometimes got stuck in the mud and the firm had to bring out block and tackle to ensure the delivery of raw materials. In 1908 Mr Smith saw a threestorey brick building erected at the rear of the old wooden factory. Extensions were made a few years later, and the present main buildings stand on what wa£ formerly Mr Edmonds’s homestead. Appointed & Director In 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War, Mr Edmonds’s eldest son died and Mr Smith virtually took charge of the production side of the business. He was made a shareholder in 1919 and was also appointed factory manager. In 1932, when Mr T. J. Edmonds died, Mr Smith was appointed to the board of directors and was also made a member of the board of directors of the Australian Cream of Tartar Company, an associate company. Mr Smith made two extensive tours overseas in 1929 and 1936. Mr Smith yesterday recalled his visit to Germany m 1936. He and his family were under constant observation, he said. They were checked from place to him it was very evident lat the Germans were preparing for JI was happy when we crossed into France again on the way home,” he said.

1 started work in 1901 as a factory hand I could not, in my wildest am ®- , ha ve imagined that I would as a shareholder and said Mr Smit h yesterday. Naturally I take a certain amount of pride in having made S °T?r e £, on .h£bution to its progress.” Mr Smith will continue to act as a or °o« e * wo companies. A son. Mr Bernard Smith, who is secretary of has been with it since during War v. H ’ with a break seas ng the War when he served over-