Obituary of Harold Spencer Cottee
Harold Cottee A.M., 1926-2006
I knew Harold Cottee for thirty years. I first met him in 1977 when I was appointed to be Superintendent of Wesley Mission Sydney. Before coming to Sydney I had written a 500 page strategic plan for the Mission’s next twenty years. Part of it concerned the development of entrepreneurial enterprises and business that would fund charitable works, because I believed the church would not have enough money, and the Governments would not be keen to fund faith based charities. The then General Manager Mr. Stan Manning suggested I must meet Mr. Cottee who could well have the first such enterprise, a citrus orchard his father Harold W Cottee had bequeathed to the Mission. So I flew up from Melbourne knowing that there were many of Wesley’s Board who were not keen to become involved in such an enterprise.
I knew that Harold S Cottee had been Joint Managing Director of Cottee’s General Foods; a Director of many of Cottee Ltd’s Subsidiary Companies; In 1961, his father Harold W.Cottee O.B.E set up a citrus orchard/fruit block of 500 acres on virgin land at Paringa in South Australia’s Riverland. Upon his death in 1973, this property and the company Sunlush Pty Ltd, was left in HW’s estate to Wesley Mission Sydney.
There were four problems facing the gift Harold told me. A number of Wesley’s Board did not believe we should accept the gift because we were a church not a business running enterprises. They believed it was too far from Sydney to manage. Some UCA Synod people said Wesley Sydney could not operate in another Synod’s area. The property had a $120,000 debt on it, and Wesley already was struggling with a $1.250,000 debt and another $120,000 debt would not be acceptable. And finally the Orchard had problems with salinity that was causing root-rot, leaf curl, and the current management was not on top of the problem.
I responded that we both knew how to solve the poor management issue. That would take one face to face meeting and ten minutes of appreciation and termination. Harold said he would do that. As for root-rot and leaf curl I would ask my friend, Laurie Stafford who was a citrus agronomist for the Victorian Department of Agriculture in Mildura, and recently an advisor in China about overcoming the citrus problems. He had a large orchard in similar Riverland terrain. He would know what to do.
His advice was to drill holes in the sub-surface rock strata and let the water drain away. Harold went one further. He encased the bores in PVC, and had floats that lifted up plugs in the bottom of the bores, so that when the water table rose, the floats lifted the plugs allowing the water to drain away. The system worked magnificently and the problem of root rot was solved. But all of the drilling added further to the debt.
It took four years before we solved the problem of leaf curl. I knew that Israel grew wonderful oranges ion the desert and along the salty sands of the Mediterranean. One hundreds years ago the Rothschilds’ agronomists encouraged the planting of citrus orchards to produce an export crop. For the next eighty years, citrus fruit seemed to symbolize the agricultural bounty of the modern state of Israel. The Jaffa orange was a kind of unofficial national symbol, and the citrus orchards along the coastal plain were one of the most memorable sights (and smells) that greeted the tourist upon landing. Jaffa oranges filled every local supermarket. In the last twenty years the acreage devoted to citrus orchards has been in decline, as the trees are removed to make room for shopping malls, housing developments, and more exotic, profitable fruits and vegetables. Water for irrigation, despite all Israeli brilliant technology (drip irrigation is an Israeli invention), is becoming scarcer and more expensive; Spain, Italy, Morocco, and South Africa are now powerful competitors on the world market; agricultural labour is expensive sand all there northern areas of Israel is land in dispute.
But in those days Israel was to the forefront of citrus development. I was beside myself with excitement when Harold told he had contacted an Israeli hydrologist who was willing to come and advise us. He spoke of trickle drip, cutting off every sprinkler head (for they only sprayed water onto the leaves and then evaporated leaving a smear of salt that curled the leaf and caused the young fruit to drop. That meant easy watering (only once every in 10 days did the pumps need to work); we had healthy-looking trees, made savings on fertilizers especially after Harold decided to go organic, and it reduced the amount of water used. This made huge savings in electricity used by our two big pumps in the new pump house we had just built in 1982 and our two long lines of pipes. We changed the name from Sun Lush Pty Ltd to Harold W.Cottee Orchard.
Wesley Mission held all the shares and dividends were dedicated to help fund Wesley Dalmar Child and Family Care. So far, this has provided in excess of three million dollars in dividends. Wesley Dalmar Child and Family Care has helped 17180 children and 9225 families across Sydney and other parts of NSW in the past five years. They offer a wide range of services designed to prevent family breakdown, as well as caring for children and young people in need of care and protection.
The orchard contains 440 acres of citrus, predominantly Valencia oranges with some navels, lemons, grapefruit and mandarins, and 60 acres of almonds and olives. It requires 7 full time staff, with casual picking crews of another 30. The Harold W. Cottee Orchard produces between four and six thousand tonnes of fruit annually, and picking continues for ten to eleven months of the year. This fruit is sold for packing or juice. This Mission had several wholly owned subsidiary Boards It operates under the direction of a board of Directors, with Mr Harold S. Cottee A.M. was Chairman and Managing Director of the Board. Every two months Harold took great pride in reporting progress to the Wesley Mission Board.
I recommended to the Wesley Mission Board that other directors be appointed to serve with Harold, and the first two appointees were Professor A.H.Pollard A.O., Mr. Harold Green, A.M., General Managers S.H.Manning O.A.M., Richard Menteith; and later Dr Jim Pendlebury O.A.M, Dr Ian Pollard, and Warrick Cottee.
Over the years, the salinity of the Murray River water used to irrigate the trees and the repeated applications of chemical fertilizers has depleted the soil but the Orchard Manager, Rod Patterson, was keen to improve the soil and change the orchard’s fertilizer regime from inorganic to organic fertilizers.
Recently in Parliament, I said, “Running Harold W Cottee Orchard has been a Board under the Chairmanship of Harold S Cottee A.M., son of the donor and one of Australia’s leading company Directors. I have taken a keen and active interest in all that is happening at Cottee Orchard. I am deeply concerned about the spread of the deadly Citrus Canker. This could wipe out the Australian citrus industry that has enough problems with cheap overseas imports.
One large orchard, like ours, has been forced to uproot and burn 300,000 trees. The replacement trees will not return an income for five to ten years. Several other large orchards with citrus canker have been ordered to bulldoze their entire stock to stop the disease spreading.
I asked Harold S Cottee concerning our property, and as you would expect, he is right on top of the situation, striving to protect our multi-million dollar investment. Harold replied: “South Australia is extremely vigilant about controlling entry of potentially harmful problems to its agricultural industries. As you are aware all vehicles must stop at the border for inspection for fruit and untreated plants. Any fruit and untreated plants are confiscated and destroyed. The Citrus Canker currently in Queensland is particularly vigorous in a tropical warm moist environment and would not survive of its own account in the southern States due to the cooler weather. The South Australian Dept of Agriculture has recently carried out an exacting inspection of 90 large citrus orchards in south Australia with an “all clear” outcome.”
There were four other involvements of the Cottee family with Wesley that should be mentioned.
HW’s sister, Pearl Austin, became one of our revered “Sisters of the People”, a group of dedicated single women who walked the slums and sought to rescue girls from drunkenness and prostitution. Sister Cottee was said to have snatched such girls from “the mouth of Hell.” She was a delightful woman, and after marriage to George Austin, was greatly honoured by Wesley Mission, and throughout the 1980’s I enjoyed her friendship until her death in 1989. She was a great supporter of our Annual Spring Fair.
A second contribution was made by HW and Lois Cottee is in the main building of the Dalmar Children’s Homes. The children were complemented for their outstanding health, and the Sydney Dental Hospital declared that they had the best teeth of any children in care. Dalmar had the voluntary services of two brothers, both dentists, and they provided thirty years of voluntary dental services to the children who inevitably came to us to extensive tooth decay, but were then given extensive free treatment in a fully equipped Dental Surgery named the Lois and Harold Cottee Dental Clinic.
The third contribution occurred in 1980. I had indicated in my Strategic Plan that we needed to do more for homeless youth. Despite not having any available money, I went house hunting. We needed a large house, with at least a dozen bed-rooms close to the inner city. The price was likely to be astronomical. I reported our need to the Board and then mentioned we had a wonderful opportunity just reported to me. A group of German nuns were wanting to leave Australia and return to Germany. They had dedicated themselves to helping young street girls and would only sell their property to another Christian organization that would carry on the same work. They had a convent in King Street Ashfield. It had a beautiful Chapel and 18 bedrooms.
I visited the nuns and told them of my plans to provide a centre for homeless girls and boys. They decided they could live with the idea of boys being also included. I started to negotiate the price, but told them up front we did not have any money in hand, but that I was sure I could raise it. They negotiated and to my surprise mentioned an unbelievably low figure: $138,000. They needed only that to pay debts and to leave for Germany.
After the Board meeting, Harold came into my office and said,. “When are you next going to visit my mother?” I replied that I had just been speaking to her on the phone because like her sister in law Pearl, she was very keen on helping our Spring Fair. I had a philosophy that Spring Fair was something organized by volunteers, with everything donated and without expenses, hence making everything we sold pure profit. Those volunteers, under the leadership of my wife Beverley and her committee, raised $3.5 million over 17 years.
I encouraged everybody to do something for us – even the elderly and frail, who knitted, made hand crafts, cakes and jams, or who like Lois Cottee would go round every apartment in her block, speak to every member of her family, and from them all receiving everything from their cupboard clean outs. That way everybody felt they were making a positive contribution, and played a part in the final total. When Lois would have about a dozen boxes full, she would ring me, and I would visit for a pastoral call, a cup of tea, some scripture and a prayer, and then fill my car with Boxes of bric-a-brack for Spring Fair. Lois would ring about four times a year.
Harold said, “When you visit next, tell her about your plans, the convent, and your need of money. She may just help.” I called in, collected all the boxes of goods, told her of my plans and needs, and Lois said, “How much money do you need.” I replied, “I need a gift of $100,000.” Lois asked me more questions, then got up, got her cheque book and wrote out a cheque for $100,000! I was absolutely stunned!
I thank her profusely, put the cheque carefully in my Bible, and started to take the Boxes down to my car. At the bottom of the stairs she called out to me: “Where are you going to get the other $38,000?” I replied, “I don’t know, but with your donation, I am sure I can raise the rest.” Lois replied, “You silly young man. Why didn’t you ask me?” I replied, “Because I thought that mentioning $100,000 was about as much as I dare ask.” “Come back up here.” Lois took out her cheque book and wrote a second cheque for $38,000 and one beautiful Spring Day, we opened Cottee Lodge, with a brass plaque honoring the service of HW and Lois Cottee. Over the twenty five years since, Cottee Lodge in Ashfield has been home to thousands of Sydney homeless youth, and our administration centre for a large number of other houses in Sydney and the Central Coast.
There was a fourth involvement I would mention. The cost of caring for children in deep need was becoming a nightmare. I saw forty other agencies that cared for children close down because of financial pressure. I was opposed to selling off the spare land at Dalmar on the basis that God wasn’t making dirt any more. But we needed to use our vacant land. I planned to build one of three huge retirement villages on that land similar to the ones I have built in Victoria in the previous ten years. How could we use this land for Aged Care, yet still solve our problems in child care.
We set up the Dalmar Land Development Committee with Harold Cottee as the Chairman. After some months I remember the excitement as Harold and our then General Manager Stan Manning and our newly appointed Property Manager John Bush came to me with an idea. It was like turning on a light bulb. We would sell the land to ourselves.
We would sell off about 20% of the land to meet immediate needs, and then sell our Dalmar land to our own Aged Care division, and as we built and leased out units in the retirement village we could repay the land portion back to Child Care putting that in a trust fund to support children in perpetuity. It was a brilliantly simple idea. It worked. We built $100 million worth of retirement villages, brought Dalmar out of financial trouble, and set up a trust that has funded thousands of children in care until, this day.
HAROLD COTTEE, throughout this life enjoyed spectacular success, growing Cottees and the Passiona Bottling Company until they became Australia’s largest food and beverage enterprise. From among the 600 or so soft-drink makers in 1950s Marchants, Cottees, Tarax, Saxby’s are the few survivors.
Harold learnt his management skills not only from watching his grandfather and father, but also his mother. Lois was involved in every part of the enterprise as was her sister Ivy Spencer the chief passionfruit cutter. I remember Lois telling me of how they used their laundry and the copper at times. In 1934, HW began selling 4 gallon tins of salted peanuts from Kingaroy to Woolworths 10 stores. Then HW decided to package Cottee’s One Penny Salted Peanuts. Every morning, Lois, helped by daughter Jean and son Harold, would spend a hour packaging peanuts. Harold would empty the large tins into an aluminium container, Lois would scoop out the required amount and put them into paper bags, and Jean would glue the bag over. That family production line allowed Lois and the children to purchase their own shares in Cottees.
Harold was also Chairman and Director of Companies in motel, insurance, private investment, real estate and rural companies; Chairman of 3 radio station applications. Member and Chairman of Federal and State Government Committees of Enquiry into Papua New Guinea Co-operatives, restructuring gas industry pricing; electricity regulatory review and electricity performance; Commissioner of Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) and Assat, Australia’s first Satellite. I talked over all of these interests with him, and visit the Aussat site at Terry Hills with him. It was a time of change of Federal Government and there was not enough money to keep us up to other countries. But Harold thrived on such challenges.
Harold had strong political convictions and our mutual friend Alan Cadman will speak of these.
From his marriage in 1951 he Olga shared in everything with him. Their three children, Harold, Warwick and Gai and eight grandchildren are a credit to them. Harold very deservedly was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for services to commerce and the community in 1985 and the Centenary Medal in 2001. His AM., placed him equal in honour with his Father, H.W.Cottee who had been awarded the O.B.E..
I was with Harold in the last hours of his life. As with his mother, I read the scriptures and prayed with him. I told him all that he meant to Wesley Mission and to me personally. We were then joined by Warrick, so I repeated my appreciation of all that he had done for Wesley Mission, of the faithful way he had carried out his father’s vision, and of how thousands of people had been blessed by that. But particularly I thanked him for his influence on my life and my business decisions, and of how much I appreciated his nods of affirmation at every Board meeting which were a secret way of saying, “I approve. Go Ahead. You are on the right track.” We prayed together for God’s peace, for freedom from pain, for strength for Olga and the children and grandchildren. Harold approved and thanked me. And I promised I would see him again. And I shall. He died a few hours later.
Harold’s philosophy of life and faith were summed up in the Desiderata. Max Ehrmann an Indiana lawyer wrote them in the 1920’s. Because they were discovered on a Board in 1954 in St Paul’s Church Baltimore, which had been established in 1692, it was often assumed the Desiderata, was written then. The title is Latin for “Things to be desired.” Harold often printed these off and distributed them to his family and friends:
DesiderataGo placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.
So Harold lived and so he died.
GORDON MOYES
As this will also be read into Hansard in the NSW Parliament as part of Australia’s official history, I would appreciate any corrections.
