The Story of GB
(This web-page is the text of a Company promotional pamphlet "From 1818 to 1970". The pamphlet also included a number of photographs, which were of poor quality, unsuitable for copying.)
The association between the families of Gibbs and Bright started in Bristol, Somerset in the latter half of the 18th Century with a friendship between George Gibbs, elder brother of Antony (who later founded Antony Gibbs & Sons), and Richard Bright.
Both were West India merchants trading out of Bristol venturing on individual cargoes alone or in association with others. The Bright family owned large estates in Jamaica and other islands of the West Indies.
THE START
In 1818 George Gibbs Senior and his son George Junior trading as "George Gibbs & Son" entered into partnership in Bristol with Robert Bright, son of Richard (and later High Sheriff of Bristol) styled Gibbs Son & Bright. The partners of Gibbs Son & Bright played a prominent part in the formation of the Great Western Railway, George being on the London and Robert on the Bristol Board of that Company. The earlier firm of George Gibbs & Son had in 1805 opened a small branch in Liverpool styled Gibbs Thompson & Co. This was taken over by the new Bristol partnership of Gibbs Son & Bright in 1818 and was re-styled Gibbs Bright & Co. in 1823 when Samuel Bright, brother of Robert, was installed as resident managing partner there. In 1838 Gibbs Bright & Co. were the loading agents for the "Great Western" the first steamer to cross the Atlantic, which we note from records "left the quay at Bristol on 7th April that year at 2.00 pm. precisely". With the growing importance of Liverpool as a port and commercial centre the Bristol parent house of Gibbs Bright & Co. thereafter gradually dwindled to a relatively unimportant agency of its own Liverpool off-spring.
In 1850, with the growth of their shipping business, the firm purchased the steamer "Great Britain" of 3,500 tons for £18,000 - her designer being the world-famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel - and placed her on the run to Australia, where she was to remain for thirty years.
GOLD
One year later gold was found at Ballarat and both immigration and commercial opportunity in Australia reached an impetus unparalleled until, perhaps, the present day. Consequently, in 1853 the firm of Gibbs Bright & Co. of Liverpool opened a Melbourne house, styled Bright Bros. & Co. as shipping agents and merchants. The first Australian partners were William Hamilton Hart who was joined by Charles and Reginald Bright, sons of Robert who came out in the "Great Britain" which was advertised to arrive in Australia not more than sixty days out of Liverpool. In addition to its agency for the "Great Britain" the Australian firm took as its first shipping agency the famous Blackball Line of sailing ships and also accepted the Australian agency for many other famous sailing ships. A Brisbane house was established in 1862 and a Sydney one in 1875. The firm also established the first steamer service between Australia and New Zealand and the first sailing line between Australia and Mauritius.
IN STEP
An interesting commentary on the philosophy of the firm regarding the standards of service to customers and the necessity of keeping pace with changing market needs is this extract from a letter written by Robert Bright to William Hamilton Hart dated 16th March, 1853 regarding the future conduct of the Australian business-
"Our long experience has, however, shown us that not to seek business but to be sought by business is the point to be aimed at ... The course of markets is beyond control, but the connections can only be retained and new ones acquired by laborious and detailed correspondence aiding the closest attention to sales."
Though the "laborious and detailed correspondence" of 1853 may now be interpreted as "effort directed to customer needs" that axiom written nearly 120 years ago stands good for our Company today.
In 1881 Antony Gibbs & Sons, London absorbed the firm of Gibbs Bright & Co. of Liverpool, re-styling it Antony Gibbs Sons & Co., the Australian branches being re-styled "Gibbs Bright & Co." The brothers Tyndall, Charles and Reginald Bright continued as partners under Antony Gibbs & Sons regime in the Liverpool and Australian houses.
With this amalgamation and the consequent increase in available capital the firm went into the import indent business, as import business to the Colony had reached unprecedented heights. It is said at that time the firm imported everything from "a needle to an anchor". In fact, it imported the first motor car into Melbourne and the first cargo of petroleum spirit into that port. You might say we started the wheels rolling - perhaps when you look around at peak traffic time we are as much to blame as the man in the First Fleet who brought the first pair of rabbits out to Australia!
At this stage we also participated in many early mining ventures. The firm at that time held agencies for a number of British Mortgage Finance and Investment Companies. Following difficult times in the 1880's their principals were forced to foreclose on a number of wool growers who owned station properties out of which situation grew the Australian Pastoral Co. The Company acts as Managing Agents for the A.P. Co. to this day.
It also from the earliest days had commenced its representation of insurance companies in the Fire, Accident and Marine fields. From 1903, G.B. represented Law, Union and Crown the forerunner of today's Law Union and Rock.
Little attention had been paid in the earlier days of the Colony to developing an export trade but at the turn of the century G.B. & Co. began to participate in the start of this business by loading ships on commission which was the basis of the loading agency business that continued to 1967. From 1873 it had been agents for the E. & A. Line and to this was added the Mogul and Houlder Bros. Lines, the Orient Line, the Commonwealth and Dominion Line in 1913 (later to become Port Line) and the East Asiatic Line in 1917. At this stage the firm also acquired interests in the stevedoring and waterside companies, some of which we still hold today.
During the 1914/18 war, with closure of the Mediterranean ports, there was a major opportunity in the dried fruits export business. The firm had had an association since the early 1900's with the Mildura Cooperative Fruit Company (one of its merchandise representatives, a man called Waters, having suggested the adoption of its "Padlock" Brand name, which is still current) and, during the first war years, Gibbs Bright & Co. jointly with Gollin & Co. became its export agents, so starting a major association which has led to the close insurance links today.
The Company had always had a flourishing merchandise business, which gradually phased over from imported to locally manufactured goods and in 1929 the firm started to take an interest in the timber field, in Tasmanian Oak. In that year it formed Hardwoods (Australia) Pty. Ltd. to acquire the timber export business of V. B. Trapp and which in 1943 itself started sawmilling operations at Smithton, Tasmania. Following the depression the Brisbane house acquired the Oxley Plywood Co. and in the mid forties the firm acquired the Anson's Bay Timber Co. with its sawmill at St. Helens from the Tucker family. In 1955 the Edge Hill Sawmill Pty. Ltd. was formed to operate the sawmill and sliced veneer plant acquired at Cairns nine years earlier and in 1958 it acquired the sawmill at Swansea, now East Coast Sawmills, from Tom Hudson. (Editor's Note:- the Company also operated sawmills at the Victorian townships of Buchan and Gelantipy.)
Panelboard, perhaps the Company's one major post 1945 innovation was started in 1959, an idea of David Gibbs' arising from a conversation in the Mitre Tavern, Melbourne a year previously.
By 1963 the business of Gibbs Bright & Co., by then in the unique position of being the largest trading partnership in the Southern Hemisphere, was converted into private company form.
This change brought with it, imperceptable at first, the seed also of some changes in management philosophy towards further major change and innovation, the importance of which was accentuated by the trends in shipping which led to the end of its shipping agency business at the crossroads of 1967.
With the onset of "containerisation" the major ship owners rationalized their overseas agency operations into consortium container groups and there was no real place for the ships' agent. Termination of its major agency with Port Line for this reason spelt the end of Gibbs Bright's ships agency business and, sadly, in that year, the Company said "good-bye" to over seventy of its shipping division personnel whom, almost without exception, were placed in similar positions mainly with the container groups and allied services.
The two executive Board members of Gibbs Bright who were shipping specialists also left the Company to take senior positions with the Trans-Ocean Container Group and other retirements and changes at that time brought a major Board (and the beginning of a major operational) re-organization within the Company.
TODAY'S BOARD
The Board consists today of Mr. D. C. L. GIBBS (Executive Chairman), The Honourable Sir GEOFFREY GIBBS, Mr. G. A. D. BRIGHT (Executive Director), Mr. J. H. G. GUEST and Mr. W. A. DICK with Mr. R. J. GAWNE, Mr. S. J. EVANS, Mr. A. N. MANNOCK and Mr. R. D. McKINLAY as Associate Board members.
Its insurance chief agency and building materials manufacturing and distribution businesses and its major Panelboard operation are now consolidated and controlled under a strong management team from Head Office in Victoria where constant market research and development work is undertaken to guide the policies of the Company to meet changing customer needs and conditions in the Australian environment.
Our story started with a Gibbs and a Bright. Today over 150 years later, despite the changes in organization, modern and competitive conditions you will see that two descendents of those same men, who were innovators of a brave and exciting commercial venture from Bristol so many years ago, still serve as executive members of our Board as the Gibbs Bright Group faces the new challenges of the seventies.
(Editor's Note:- the re-structured Board accomplished a significant re-organisation of the Company. Within 2 years they had recovered the reduction in trade which resulted from the closure of the shipping agency business. They acquired 100% of the Panelboard shareholding, and incorporated it within the Building Materials Division. They introduced modern business management systems, and developed market-orientated venture planning. Unfortunately, the parent A.G.&S. Company, one of the few remaining accredited London Merchant Banks on the Board of the Bank of England, was acquired by the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, who then closed down all global non-banking operations of the Group.)
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