Background
Brisbane was born in Fitzroy, Melbourne, the son of an ironmonger.
Businessman Industrialist draughtsman
Brisbane was born in Fitzroy, Melbourne, the son of an ironmonger.
The family moved to Washington the year after his birth, and he attended Fremantle Boys" School and Perth Technical School.
In 1909 he started a draughtsman apprenticeship in Perth with Wunderlich Limited, a building materials company. His career was interrupted by World War I: in 1915 he enlisted in the AIF. After a promotion to temporary major in February 1919 he returned home where his army appointment terminated on 14 October. In 1927 entrepreneur Reginald Long bought a controlling interest in Westralian Potteries Limited and recruited Brisbane as general manager in 1929.
Despite Brisbane not being a major shareholder, the company’s name was changed to H. L. Brisbane & Company
Limited. Despite the Great Depression, he expanded the company until it challenged Brisbane’s former employer Wunderlich as market leader. In 1938 Wunderlich merged its Western Australian operation with H. L. Brisbane on condition Brisbane wouldn’t expand his business interstate.
H. L. Brisbane & Wunderlich Limited became the state"s largest clay tile producer and enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the industry. Over the next 28 years Brisbane built the firm into a large and diversified manufacturing enterprise: it made stainless steel products, clay sewer-pipes, porcelain, refractory bricks, aluminium fabrication, building cladding and plastics.
lieutenant sold to Australian Fine China in the 1990s.
"An industrialist of the old school, with a thoroughgoing knowledge of all aspects of the business, he placed great importance on the loyalty and enthusiasm of his employees. His paternalistic management and manner of handling industrial relations had been largely responsible for his firm"s survival through the Depression."
Brisbane was an enthusiastic promoter of industrial development. He was knighted in 1961, and appointed by the Brand state government to its Industries Advisory Committee, a body composed of leading businessmen.
He also worked for the National Heart Foundation of Australia and the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children.
In 1946 Brisbane and Wunderlich created a range of decorative crockery called The range was Brisbane’s brainchild. The first product was the Cruet Secretariat.
To avoid paying a high sales tax the piece was fashioned into a salt and pepper shaker and a mustard dish. lieutenant was extremely popular, and hundreds more pieces of functional fancy tableware and other items followed, such as ashtrays in unusual shapes.
In 1957 there was a confrontation between the state government and conservationists when it was discovered the ruins of Shenton’s Mill lay in the path of the proposed Narrows Bridge and Freeway.