Walter Randolph Carpenter (1877 - 1954)

Born 31 Oct 1877 in Singapore, Straits Settlement

Husband of Edith (Anderson) Carpenter — married 18 Dec 1899 in Queensland (Australia)

Died 1 Feb 1954 at age 76 in Killara, New South Wales, Australia

Biography

Sir Walter Randolph Carpenter was born on 31st October 1877 at Singapore, Straits Settlements, son of John Bolton Carpenter and his English wife Emma Frances, née Griffin. John, a merchant, whaler and sea captain, came from New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America. Restricted by the American Civil War he had made the Straits Settlements his base and been naturalised a British subject. In 1885 he moved his family to Sydney, New South Wales (Australia) and became a skipper for Burns, Philp & Co.

To help the family, Walter left Forest Lodge Public School at fourteen and joined the Sydney office of Burns Philp. After a year at Esperance, Western Australia, about 1896 he moved to the Thursday Island branch.

There, on 18th December 1899, Walter married Edith Anderson, daughter of a sugar-planter. ^[1]

He had recently left Burns Philp, bought three luggers and set up a family pearl-shelling business, registered as J B Carpenter & Sons Ltd in 1901. In 1905 he was chairman of the Torres Shire Council. Leaving his brother William in charge, Carpenter left Thursday Island late in 1908 and rejoined Burns Philp. After a year in Sydney, he went to Fiji and managed Robbie, Kaad Co. Ltd, recently bought by Burns Philp.

When the First World War began, Carpenter realized the importance of copra in making munitions and for food, and bought it wherever he could find it and raise credit, chartering 'almost anything that would float', including an old sailing ship, to get it to England. He took enormous risks but made huge profits, and was ideally placed to expand into New Guinea after the Australian government had expropriated German property. Under his able management, the company helped to finance, and later took over, the plantations of some Australian ex-servicemen who became heavily indebted when copra prices fell; it became large storekeepers, traders and property owners in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands—in 1922 he had set up W R Carpenter & Co. (Solomon Islands) Ltd.

Carpenter took advantage of the development of the rich Morobe goldfields in New Guinea; he acquired hotels in Wau and Bulolo, set up electrical power plants and cold stores in various centres, operated a small fleet of inter-island steamers, built and equipped a slip in Rabaul, and operated a desiccated coconut factory. In 1933 he established the first air service between Salamaua and Wau with two De Haviland Fox Moths and next year a direct shipping-line between Australia, the Western Pacific and European ports: most of his ships were built in Australia.

A considerable philanthropist, Carpenter subsidized pound for pound the Home for Destitute Children, and in 1935 gave a house at Wollstonecraft worth £15,000 and £5000 in cash to the Commonwealth government for a jubilee maternity hospital. He was knighted in 1936.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Carpenter's ships and aeroplanes were commandeered by the British and Australian governments. However in 1940 he visited the USA and managed to purchase two freighters 'under conditions which allow him to operate in the Pacific free of European control'. He then formed a new company in Canada, built a copra-crushing mill near Vancouver and found a healthy North American market. Although his buildings and plantations in New Guinea and the Solomon, Gilbert and Ellice islands were destroyed when Japan entered the war, he did well from the wartime prosperity of Fiji, and later received compensation for war damage. Soon after the war he bought two British ships for the Australian-Canadian run. In November 1941 he had settled permanently in Vancouver and in May 1948 he and his wife took out Canadian citizenship.

After several heart attacks, aged 76 years, Carpenter died on 1st February 1954 at Killara, while on a visit to Sydney, and was cremated with Anglican rites. ^[2] He was survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.

Sources

1. ↑ Queensland Marriage Index #1900/C/2133
2. ↑ New South Wales Death Index #1522/1954; registered at Chatswood

• Nelson, H N. Carpenter, Sir Walter Randolph (1877–1954), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1979; accessed online 14 Jul 2022.