Ewen Waterman leaves Adelaide cinema scene to return to promoting his love of Australian wool to wider world
"Mr Wool", Ewen Waterman, with his wife Vera.
Ewen Waterman in 1948 became the energetic South Australian promoter of wool to the world – after 20 years with his family’s Ozone cinema chain in Adelaide.
Although he went into the cinema business in 1911, Ewen’s father Hugh wanted all his sons qualified in a trade. Ewen Waterman in 1917 was sent jackerooing for four years before enrolling in a three-year wool-classing certificate course at the South Australian School of Mines and Industries.
Before gaining the certificate in 1926, Waterman worked for wool broking firm Goldsbrough Mort classing large clips in South Australia and New South Wales. In 1928, Waterman joined the family Ozone Theatre business and became managing director in 1934 when his father retired.
Waterman resigned as chairman of Waterman Brothers Ltd and associated companies in 1948 after being appointed Australia’s member of the London-based International Wool Secretariat (IWS). He was elected chairman in 1952. He also was elected chairman of the IWS’s equivalent in the Unites States of America, the Wool Bureau Inc. and vice-president of the International Wool Textile Organisation.
Waterman travelled widely for the International Wool Secretariat that, by 1953, was represented in at least 14 countries, including in Japan and Germany. Charged with promoting the use of wool throughout the world, Waterman saw ten and a half million bales of wool accumulated during wartime eliminated in half the time expected.
Cutting a dapper figure in Savile Row suits while at the International Wool Secretariat Regent Street, London, office, Waterman as “Mr Wool” was always optimistic about the wool industry. He shunned synthetic fibres and even blends and saw “as much chance of finding a substitute for wool as . . . of producing a synthetic herring”.
In 1955. Waterman returned to take up practical sheep farming on Blackwood Park, a 1273-acre property near Strathalbyn in South Australia. He stayed involved in the wool industry as the commonwealth member of the Australian Wool Bureau (later board) 1955-63, advising the Australian government on factors affecting the wool industry and representing Australia at international conferences on wool promotion and research. In 1966-7, he chaired the Australian wool industry conference.
Waterman also held directorships in media, textile fabrication and marketing bodies, and in the pastoral industry. In 1957, he was appointed chairman of the South Australian board of Elder Smith & Co. Ltd (later Elder Smith Goldsbrough Mort). He was also chairman of the Onkaparinga Woollen Co. Ltd and Felt & Textiles of Australia Ltd, and served on the boards of BEA Motors, News Ltd, and Southern Television Corporation – as well as community and charitable interests.
In 1974-75, Waterman concentrated on his Aberdeen Angus stud and pure merino flock on Blackwood Park, delighting in classing the fine-merino fleeces himself.
