Marchant & Co. History.
I thought I would share some information I have discovered today on the people behind Marchant & Co.
The following is what I have found so far but I will keep digging for more but it is like buried treasure, as in it being very difficult to locate. The information has been compiled from various reports and I have edited them down to what I felt was relevant.
Percy Marchant was born in London and with his brothers came to Australia in the latter part of the 19th century. He began business at Parramatta as a printer.
He possessed little capital and no influence, but he did have determination, a progressive outlook and a sense of fair dealing that, as the years passed, helped him to build two successful and influential companies.
He moved his printing works to Sydney as the business expanded and in 1903 was joined by Mr.Percy Charles White in a partnership and they founded the printing firm of Marchant and Co. Pty.Ltd. which they guided as joint managing directors White was born in Bathurst and came to Sydney in 1900. The Marchant firm had always been noted for its progressive spirit. It pioneered amongst other things, the offset process of printing in Sydney and also the ''window envelopes''. Percy Marchant was for years one of the leading members of the Master Printers Association and he was known affectionately by employees as "The Chief".
Percy Marchant died on the 21st of December, 1948 at the age of 79.
I have previously stated I believe 1949 was the last year Marchant & Co.printed their last film posters in Australia. The last example found being the Intruder In The Dust duotone daybill. This seems more likely now in light of the passing of Percy Marchant. It is possible with the death of the last remaining founder the firm ceased operations. Would be interesting to find out if this was the case or not.
Hondo
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Comments
Thanks for pointing out the correct order of passing. Seeing that Percy White died in 1950 isn't it possible that the remaining relatives decided to stop the designing & printing of film posters to cut costs. Seeing the firm had it appears previously taken the decision to produce only duotone and not colour posters years preceeding the deaths of the two founders, was the cutting back from colour to duotone a cost reducing decision made in the late 1940's and the dropping of the designing & printing of duotone posters a further way to cut costs? Just a thought.