George Marchant

Did You Know?

• In 1890, after reading Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Marchant founded a Bellamy Society.
• His soft drink business was purchased in 1964 by Coca-Cola Amatil.

Business life

Marchant took over John R. Palmer’s ginger beer business in Brisbane in 1886, later opening a factory in Spring Hill. His soft-drink company grew into Australia’s largest, with plants in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Newcastle. A believer in social equality, he was inspired by Edward Bellamy’s novel and started a Bellamy Society in 1890. He chaired meetings that raised money for striking workers, paid his female staff above the food industry average, and shared most company profits with employees. He also created a bottling machine that was adopted globally.

Philanthropy

With his wife, Mary Jane Dwyer, Marchant was the benefactor of many charitable causes, including providing land in Ann St for the New Jerusalem Church and in Chermside, where he donated his horse paddock to the Kedron Shire Council as a park. Marchant Park is named after him. A ward of the Brisbane City Council centred on Chermside is also named Marchant Ward. He was a major benefactor in the establishment of the Canberra Temperance Hotel in Brisbane, which opened in 1929.

In 1932, the Queensland Society for Crippled Children was established to care for children with severe physical disabilities arising from the polio epidemic of 1932. In September 1932, Marchant donated his home Montrose and its 5 acres of gardens at Taringa to the society to establish an institution for the care and treatment of the children. When the number of children needing care became too many to be accommodated in Montrose, Marchant purchased a property at Consort Street, Corinda as a new larger facility which continued to be called Montrose (which is still in use for the care of disabled children in 2015).