Warrnambool’s Mick Ray wants a statue erected in a prominent place in the city to honour the late clothing entrepreneur Sir Fletcher Jones.
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Mr Ray wrote to Warrnambool City Council about the idea late last year and received a reply saying they would consider it.
“I would just like them to consider a bust or statue with appropriate plaque noting the achievements he’s done for Warrnambool,” he said.
“I think he’s left an impression on most people in Warrnambool.
“He employed a lot of people in Warrnambool over the years.”
Mr Ray said that at the height of operations in Warrnambool Fletcher Jones had about 3000 workers.
Among them was his wife who worked at the factory as a machinist, and her name is included on a list of workers at the site.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a little while, so I thought I’d put pen to paper,” he said.
Mr Ray said he’d met the late Sir Fletcher Jones many years ago during the 1970s when he worked at Flagstaff Hill when it was being constructed.
He said he didn’t mind where the statue went, but thought somewhere in the CBD would be appropriate.
“I want it where people can see it,” he said.
“I was up in Maryborough (Queensland) some years ago and I was looking for a Mary Poppins statue and it was on the corner of the street. I thought ‘that looks nice’.”
The textiles entrepreneur established the Pleasant Hill factory in 1948, but industry deregulation in the late 1980s sped up the decline of the company which eventually shut its Warrnambool operations in 2005.
According to the FJs Stories website, Sir Fletcher Jones served in France during World War 1 where he suffered shell shock after being buried alive for four hours, leaving him unconscious for eight days.
In 1924 he purchased a menswear store in Warrnambool which expanded over the years to include 55 stores Australia-wide.
In 1956, the company made the uniform for the Australian women's team for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
In 1959 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and was made a knight bachelor in 1974 for services to decentralisation and the community.
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