In 1924, into the tiny town of Warrnambool, which then had a population of a fraction under 4000 people, there came a travelling salesman…’ The remarkable life and achievements of Fletcher Jones. Australians of a certain generation all know Fletcher Jones – the stores, the clothing, the daggy dad slacks – but not many people know the extraordinary story of the man who founded the store. David Fletcher Jones was many things: altruistic, visionary, pragmatic, selfish, community-minded, a canny businessman, an entrepreneur, a romantic, a dreamer. His rise was unlikely, given he was the stammering, motherless son of a impoverished Bendigo blacksmith, who left school at twelve to work for the family and ended his war service buried alive by a shell explosion at Fromelles. On his return to Australian, Fletcher had an epiphany in the unlikeliest of places: the veterans’ dole queue. In his memoirs, he wrote, ‘I joined the pension queue for the third time at the Clifton Hill Post Office…suddenly when almost at the pay counter I broke free of the queue and went for my life down Queen’s Parade.’ Instead, he travelled the Western District selling clothes, then opened a tailor’s shop in Warrnambool. The life of Fletcher Jones raises deep questions about why good people are good. And perhaps the most profound question of all – is it still possible in this venal age to run an enterprise for profit while seeking to do good at individual and societal levels? There are lessons for us all in a life like Fletcher’s. He was also much-loved. And when he died in 1977, Warrnambool lined the streets to see his cortege pass by.
