Albert Sims

Story

Albert George Sims was born in Paddington, London, on 29th December, 1889, to Samuel Gary and Henrietta Elizabeth, one of nine children, 3 daughters and 6 sons.

He had travelled the lace trade in France and the United Kingdom. acting on impulse he had left his native London with a wife and three-year-old daughter to try his luck in a new country. He had no job to come to. In his pocket he had letters of introduction to Paterson, Laing and Bruce and other Sydney lace dealers. Beside them he had only a few shillings in his pocket to start life with. The letters were useless as there were no openings in lace. Back in England he had been a follower of Keir Hardie and a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. In 1913, aged 24. Albert Sims joined the New South Wales Railways Department as a tally clerk and storeman. It was a natural step for him to join the Australian Socialist Party. Holman had deserted the Labour movement and was governing New South Wales with a National Coalition. Firm in principle, Albert Sims had become a member of the Anti-Conscription League.

In 1917 the great railway strike began in August and within a fortnight the stoppage had spread throughout the State and affected 25,000 workers. By September the strike was over, settled on terms that promised no victimisation. The promises were not kept. Many of the strikers were hired again on lower-paid jobs. Others including J.J.Cahill and Albert Sims were not re-employed at all.

Flat broke and with a growing family to keep, Sims took a job as a collector of metal scrap with Sandy Goldman, a Jewish dealer at Glebe. He stayed with Goldman for 6 months. Then with characteristic dash, he started a scrap collecting business on his own and brought some old mates into it.

He had about fifty pounds. He also had a shrewd eye, and honest heart and a ton of pluck.He had a hundred foot square yard at Wilfred Street, Newtown, that was ideal for a depot. Sims called on his friend, Evans, of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Evans advised him to start with a weekly tenancy, then stick to it until he acquired the freehold. At first Sims used a bicycle to travel around making purchases. Then he moved up to a horse and cart.

During the next year Albert Sims and his colleagues expanded their activities and in 1929 formed the company Albert G. Sims Ltd. Horse and cart gave way to motor vehicles and mechanised shop equipment. The company’s business was to acquire and sell scrap metal and residues from ingoting companies. In 1937 the company became a proprietary company, still with its headquarters at Newtown. Within the next two years metal pressing and baling machines had been installed. Huge shears came in to slice the metal into manageable foundry sizes. A laboratory for chemical analysis and research was erected. The property at Newtown expanded to two acres, and the company acquired its Mascot premises. The Electro-Chemical Refining Company which Sims established during World War 11 for detinning was ultimately incorporated into the proprietary company.

Sims established branches in all states and organised the business of exporting scrap to the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.

Despite his expansion and the acquisition of wealth, Sims never lost touch with the working man. His heart was a s big as his head and during the Depression of 1929-1932 many a Newtown mother was saved from despair by his anonymous charity. During the War, and with the encouragement of Mr Chifley, then Federal Treasurer, Sims established staff superannuation and profit-sharing schemes, taxable at the source. He saw that well-trained men from Europe would strengthen his business and he welcomed them into it.

At the end of World War 11 he set about increasing the authorised capital of the company, and in 1948 he steered teh business into operation as a public company.

For 30 years Albert Sims had not touched politics at any level. I September 1948, Mr Reg Bartley, the Lord Mayor, invited him to stand as a candidate for Newtown ward in the newly expanded City Council. Sims accepted.

On October 3rd, with his wife and young daughter, he drove friends and from Melbourne up to the mountains for the day. On arriving home he helped his wife and young sleeping daughter out of the car and into the home. His 14 year-old daughter found him dead of a massive heart attack beside the car when she went to close the driveway gates.

He had taken all the steps necessary to blueprint most of the activities of his company for the next ten years. SimsMetal, now known as the Sims Group, is a world-wide business and the largest scrap metal company in the world.

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