Textiles entrepreneur Sir Fletcher Jones is one of Warrnambool's most well known figures, and a Warrnambool City Council candidate wants to see a statue erected in his honour near the main street.
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Richard Ziegeler said the idea had received a lot of support from the community and he thought the ideal location would be out the front of what was his store on the corner of Liebig and Koroit streets.
But he said that with Sir Fletcher being such a humble man, the idea would have to get the support of his family.
"I certainly wouldn't pursue it much further if the family objected to it, but it's the sort of thing that would be dear to a lot of people's hearts I'm sure," Mr Ziegeler said.
"It's a discussions that should be had. We owe Fletcher Jones a lot in terms of his legacy to the town. It's worth broaching the subject."
Mr Ziegeler said he had met Fletcher Jones a few times, but he was only very young.
"I didn't know him well but I did actually play him in a biographical play," he said.
Mr Ziegeler said paying for the statue would be something he believed could be done through a public appeal rather than taking it out of council funds.
We owe Fletcher Jones a lot in terms of his legacy to the town.
- Richard Ziegeler
"I don't think it's something that's going to cost us an awful lot either," he said.
At the height of operations in Warrnambool, Fletcher Jones employed about 3000 workers.
In 1924, he purchased a menswear store in Warrnambool which expanded over the years to include 55 stores Australia-wide.
The textiles entrepreneur opened the store on the corner of Koroit and Liebig streets in 1931 where he operated from until he established the Pleasant Hill factory in 1947.
At his CBD location, Sir Fletcher had a bespoke tailoring room upstairs and it was during this era, he started to specialise in ready-to-wear trousers.
Industry deregulation in the late 1980s sped up the decline of the company which eventually shut its Warrnambool operations in 2005.
In 1956, the company made the uniforms 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.
According to the FJs Stories website, Sir Fletcher Jones enlisted in 1915 at age 20 and served in both Egypt and France during World War I.
He returned home after suffering shell shock when he was buried alive for four hours which leaving him unconscious for eight days.
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