MILLIONAIRE CONFECTIONER

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 September 1945, Page 5

MILLIONAIRE CONFECTIONER

STARTED BUSINESS ON 9d MELBOURNE, August 20. Sir Macpherson Robertson, millionaire confectionery manufacturer and philanthropist, died to-day, aged B'6. Once described as a “beneficent tycoon,” he was famous foi' his wise and beneficient gifts to the State. The career of Sir Macpherson Robertson (or Macßobertson, as he preferred to be known) was a romantic story of a rise from penury to affluence. He began his career as a confectionery manufacturer with a homemade plant which he had bought for 9d. By shrewd business aptitude, remarkable executive ability, and farsightedness, he established a gigantic enterprise for which he once refused a cash offer of £2-| million. He was born of Scottish parents at Ballarat in September, 1860. When he was nine the family went back to Scotland, returning to Australia in 1874. In 1880 he decided to become a confectionery-maker and, in the bathroom of his parents’ home at Fitzroy, with a nailcan costing 6d and a tin pannican costing 3d, he opened his factory. In 50 years he saw his business grow to a self-contained group of factories covering 35 acres and containing processes, some of which were without parallel in the world.

In recent years he has given away both publicly and secretly more than £200,000. His largest single gift was £lOO,OOO in 1933 to the State for the erection of a High School for girls, a cultural centre for children, the construction of a bridge across the Yarra at Grange Road, and for prizes for the Centenary air race. A large stretch of Australian Antarctic territory, Macrobertson Land, was named after him. He was cheated K.B. in 1933 and K.B.E. in 1935.