About
George Alexander
It was this philanthropic spirit that led George Alexander to establish The George Alexander Foundation in 1972. George Alexander appointed the Governors of The Ian Potter Foundation as the Governors of his Foundation and left grantmaking and investment decisions to them. The Governors have focused on two areas of particular interest to Mr Alexander, education, and environment and conservation.
George Alexander was born in London in 1910. He was raised by his grandparents who lived in Hampshire. He was a bright student with an ambition to become a motor mechanic, but his family could not afford the cost of an apprenticeship. He left school at age 13 to work in a bicycle shop.
In 1926 at the age of fifteen, George Alexander migrated to Australia under the Big Brother Movement, an organisation which brought British young men to Australia to work on the land. He spent 18 months working on a dairy farm at Willatook and then went to try wheat farming near Marnoo, 50 km from St Arnaud. After the harvest he was sent by the Big Brother Movement to work at Liparoo in the semi desert Mallee country. Sadly the crops he helped plant failed - it only rained once in the time George was there.
Scooping water channels in the Mallee in the 1920's. George recalled that he did this by himself, holding both the reins and the scoop handles. (Reproduced courtesy of Museum Victoria)
Times were tough during the Depression years and in 1930 he was out of work for several months in Melbourne. He returned to Willatook for a short time and then moved to Koroit in Western Victoria, where he worked in a local garage and finally realised his dream of becoming an A grade mechanic.
Smith's Motors (now Brooks Motors) in Commercial Road, Koroit. November 2005
His education had only just begun and he enrolled in evening classes in mechanics and management at the Gordon Institute, where he also became a part time lecturer. During the Second World War he became a production engineer and then manager of a munitions factory and, being classified as an essential worker, was not allowed to enlist in the armed forces.
George studied Industrial Management and Executive Training at RMIT and was awarded the John Storey Award from the Department of Industrial Management. He was thirty two.
George Alexander combined his knowledge of mechanics and engineering with a creative mind and invented some highly successful products during his business career. After the war finished, he used his savings to set up a factory to manufacture his invention, a system of brass hose fittings. He called his hose fittings business "Neta". The Neta business flourished and became universally known in the 1960s with its "Happy Pappy" advertising campaign.
The drawings of brass hose fittings from George Alexander's patent application, 24 August 1948.
The business expanded through the
acquisition of smaller companies and was highly successful. In 1976 George Alexander sold the business to NKS Holdings, now PPI Corporation Pty Ltd, with the intention of retiring.
In fact, George did not retire when he moved to Queensland but developed extensive interests in property development. He also became more aware of environmental issues and continued to work on inventions! George Alexander created the Foundation in order to use his wealth in a constructive way. He was particularly aware of the obstacles he had faced as a child and his own lack of education, so he was inspired to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get a start in life. His years working on farms, together with Neta's involvement in water supply had given him an awareness of the environmental problems of rural Australia and he believed that much can and should be done to repair the damage that has been done to the environment since 1788. Even at the age of 97 he was taking steps to promote the future development of his property along environmentally sustainable development principles. George Alexander was active and alert and maintained his interest in the work of the Foundation until his death in February 2008. His generosity and vision will continue to make a positive contribution to our community for many years to come.
