Kiwi Boot Polish Company - KIWI: the Australian brand that brought a shine to the world: a history of the Kiwi Polish Company

Peter Morley of Meridian Sculpture Founders, Fitzroy, giving William Ramsay a new shine. Peter calls the Parade Gloss Dr Ramsays colour enhancer. He uses it for restoring bronze sculptures or when finishing new works.

Staff photo at the front of the Kiwi premises, 683 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, c . 1912

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In late 2010, we, the daughter and four sons of Tom Ramsay made a long-awaited decision to commission a history of Kiwi. We were joined by our cousin Patricia Fullerton, who had written a biography of Hugh Ramsay, the painter, and brought an indispensable knowledge of early Ramsay family history.

In asking Keith Dunstan, veteran Melbourne journalist and author, to write the history, we made a fortunate choice. Keith started work on the book in July 2011. In the challenging task of sorting through the archive he had a great deal of help from Angus McDonald, who had started organising the Archive earlier that year. Angus, an author himself and an indomitable traveller is now sadly and untimely deceased. Malcolm Daubney (former senior executive and director with Kiwi) joined our group and brought invaluable help in contacting other former Kiwi executives, fact-checking and in personal knowledge of Kiwis later years.

Keith himself died in September 2013, but like the veteran journalist he was, not before finishing his final drafts.

The massive task remained of selecting and placing the photos and advertisements and other visual material found in the archive, not to mention all the editing process required to bring the book to its finished form.

Andrew Cunningham of Studio Pazzo has been in charge of the whole book production process; Neil Conning did the editing; both with creative and professional thoroughness and mostly good-tempered patience.

The book is now finished all those involved in producing it believe that it is a fascinating record of one of the most successful ever Australian companies. This book is our tribute to all the people who made it such a success.

Hamish Ramsay

Anne Folk

Robin Ramsay

Fergus Ramsay

Dougal Ramsay

Melbourne, October 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have contributed information for this book, in particular Ramsay family members Hamish Ramsay, Robin Ramsay, Fergus Ramsay, Dougal Ramsay and Anne Folk. Information and editorial advice was also provided by Patricia Fullerton, great-niece of William Ramsay and author of the splendid biography of the painter Hugh Ramsay. Malcolm Daubney contributed with details of the Kiwi company history. Help was also given by Lee Barr, Lew Bell, Michael Burnett, Tony Carless, Liz Cooper, Lindsay Cuming, Mike Fraser, Brian Healey, Simon Israel, Tony Jamison, Jennifer Jeffries, Russell Martin, Hugh McKelland, Ivan McLaws, Bill Lipsman, John Murphy, Kath OConnor, Geoff Rout, Graeme Samuel, Denis Shelley, Cam Smith, Noelle Smith, Jan-Willem Taminiau, Peter Thomas, Bev Thompson and Andre Van Vuuren. My nephew Peter McIntosh Jnr helped untangle some of the legal matters.