Death of Stan Gilmour
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: One of the fathers of the change to decimal currency in 1966 died this week at the age of 101 years. Stan Gilmour, head of the then Victorian Employers Federation, stumped the country for more than a decade persuading employers of the financial benefits of departing from pounds, shillings and pence and adopting the decimal system. Despite immense opposition to his logical and researched arguments, he convinced businesses and industries to change.
Stan was born in 1906 in Mordialloc, Victoria. He wanted to become a farmer; he entered Dookie Agricultural College and was determined to be a modern farmer. He joined the staff at Roseworthy Agricultural College in South Australia. He then studied commerce and economics at the University of Melbourne.
After graduating he took jobs with the Victorian Lands Department and with the Manpower office of the Federal Government. At Sunshine Harvester he blossomed as an industrial officer. His big move in 1945 was to take on the then unknown task of secretary of the Victorian Employers Federation. When he started work there was not enough money to pay his wage but he developed the Victorian Employers Federation as a provider of secretarial and administrative services for trade and industry associations and industrial award information services to industry nationally. The Victorian Employers Federation prospered, and Stan left a strong and wealthy organisation in 1970.
At the Victorian Employers Federation, Stan helped launch the Australian Decimal Research Organisation, which pressed for decimal currency. He established Victorian Aid to the Mentally Ill [VATMI], which developed sheltered workshops for the mentally ill; the Victorian Overseas Foundation, which provides training travel scholarships for young tradespeople; the Australia Japan Society; the Committee for Economic Development of Australia; and many other groups. He launched the Over 50s Association, which found work for more than 40,000 retired Australians, the Australian Retired Persons Association, the Mutual Friendly Society and the Over 50s Friendly Society. He received an MBE for his work for older Australians.
Stan’s management style reflected a formidable intellect and a fearless taste for battle; woe betide anyone who stood in his way or who let lower motives detract from grand ideas and high ethics. His loyalty to his Christian principles was clear to all who dealt with him. He was a formidable figure, unafraid of any principality or power in the land in his day. After he left full-time work, Stan travelled extensively and bought and sold some farming properties. He worked with various churches and for various social causes, including an enthusiastic campaign when he was in his nineties to draw attention to the economic costs of alcohol and to make the liquor industry accountable for the social ravages of alcohol.
Stan had a happy marriage to Ingrid for 61 years and her death was a heavy blow to him. Stan had two children, Helen and John. John became a feature writer on economics: for many years he had a weekly page in the Bulletin. He wrote of the travails of The Bootery, a chain of footwear shops in Melbourne, as it wrestled with the practical implications of government policies on employment, import protection, and the harrowing by government bureaucrats. Stan and John had a Saturday morning breakfast together at the Spencer Street railway cafeteria, where these issues were debated, adding spice to the many articles John published.
In recent years, John and Stan have travelled extensively together. At his peak, Stan was a great runner and high jumper: he had a tremendously strong physique. Each year he planted more than 20,000 daffodil bulbs on his Mount Dandenong property, cared for and cut them, and then gave away tens of thousands of daffodils each year to hospitals, aged care centres and the like. He never sold a bloom. Stan was a committed Christian, and few would ever forget the Annual Conferences of Churches of Christ when he would question the church bureaucrats on what they had accomplished. He had little time for non-performers, but gave life-long encouragement to those who were innovative and successful. A favourite prayer was “Lord, make me not so poor that I curse You; nor so rich that I forget You.” He established a number of church-related foundations, trusts and businesses that resulted in money being raised to send young ministers overseas to research and achieve their dreams. He was a man given to regular exercise, abstentious ways and a careful and mainly vegetarian diet. He died this week aged 101½ years.