Honour, thrift and industry

The story of the Michelides brothers, who migrated to Australia from Kastellorizo in the 1900s, has been lovingly recorded by their grandchildren.


In 1891 Peter Michelides left Kastellorizo with a small suitcase containing a handful of clothes and a scrap of cardboard. On the note, his father Spero had written in pencil, three words in Greek: ‘Τιμή’, ‘Οικονομία’ and ‘Εργασία’ – ‘Honour’, ‘Thrift’ and ‘Industry’ – three precepts to live by, as parting advice for his 13-year-old son. Peter would treasure the cardboard fragment and keep it close for the rest of his life.

From the most humble beginnings, Peter and Michael created a commercial enterprise which a half a century later had become one of the biggest tobacco producers in Australia.

A heavy responsibility had been laid on young shoulders. Sixty-year-old Spero was rolling the dice. His wife Jasmine was expecting their seventh child, and the meagre income from his waterfront kafenio was simply not enough to get by. With Kastellorizo’s ship-building and sponge industries in decline, the island’s time of prosperity had come to an end, and Peter, barely out of primary school, had been chosen to find a new home for the family. He was on his way to Egypt, following a route many Kastellorizians had taken to find work. There he would encounter a society which had been under British rule for nearly a decade and an economy that had deep links to Greece, with wealthy Hellenes dominating many of the country’s manufacturing industries.

Peter found work as an apprentice in a Greek-owned cigarette factory. Working in what were not more than sweatshops, the dutiful son, who learnt to roll 1,000 cigarettes in a ten-hour shift, sent most of his earnings back to his parents. All the while, isolation from his loved ones only drove him to further improve his situation and prospects. A natural linguist, he mastered English, French, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, and four years after leaving Greece, through his tireless efforts the family were finally able to join him in Port Said. At 17, the boy who had left Kastellorizo was a young man eager to realise his dreams as the new century beckoned.

By 1903, Peter’s by now well-honed commercial instincts were telling him that Western Australia, still feeling the effects of the 1890s gold rush, was fertile ground for the growing, increasingly globalised cigarette industry. With Greek tobacco manufacturers in Cairo opening factories on the east coast of the United States, a new and untapped market beckoned in Australia. In April 1904 Peter, at 25, set out once more for uncharted waters. He arrived in Perth a month later and was joined within months by his 13-year-old brother Michael.

So began the Michelides story in Australia. From the most humble beginnings, Peter and Michael created a commercial enterprise which half a century later had become one of the biggest tobacco producers in Australia. The Michelides narrative is not just one of breathtaking commercial success against the odds by two pioneering migrants, it’s also the story of how the same individuals laid the foundations for a vibrant and confident Greek community in Australia’s largest state.

The book that tells this extraordinary story, The Tobacco Pioneers: Michelides – A Family History, was launched last week by WA’s former governor Dr Ken Michael AM, also the grandson of a 19th century migrant from Kastellorizo. Researched by the family themselves, what sets it apart, beyond the remarkable narrative, is the publication’s use of stunning archive material, sourced from family members’ private collections and official records. Beautifully designed and produced, the 450 page book is divided into two parts. ‘Part 1 – An Epic Journey’ takes the reader from the family’s early beginnings in the late 18th century in Samos, through to the conclusion of Peter and Michael’s lives.

Part 1, researched and written by Peter Paroulakis (Peter Michelides’ eldest grandson), tells of how Peter and Michael’s work went far beyond their tobacco business Michelides Ltd, which grew from a single shop in 1904, to a purpose-designed factory employing almost a thousand staff and serviced by 12 commercial tobacco plantations.

While Peter may have been the instigator of the business, brother Michael played a key role in its success . More introspective, Michael’s contribution as general manager of Michelides Ltd was far reaching, applying his considerable business acumen to the partnership. A successful racehorse owner and entrepreneur in his own right, Michael’s own thoroughbred qualities complemented his sibling’s commercial vision.

But it’s the parallel development of the business, while establishing the infrastructural foundations for WA’s Greek community, that marks the Michelides’ story as unique.

After arriving in Perth, Peter Michelides devoted himself to initiating far-reaching projects that cemented the community’s cultural and religious traditions; from establishing the organisations that would underpin community development, to building the facilities a fully-functioning culture needed to survive and prosper.

In the early years, perhaps one action illustrates not only Peter’s position as a spokesman for the community, but the level at which his interventions for its welfare were made. In 1916, violent attacks on Greek-owned businesses (portrayed by a racist local press as supporting Germany in WWI) in Perth, and particularly Kalgoorlie, were stopped only after Peter sent a cable to Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and Australia’s governor general, Ronald Munro-Ferguson, appealing for police protection.

The story of how Peter and Michael took on the all-powerful monopolies that controlled the Australian tobacco industry between the early-1900s and the 1950s is a fascinating and unique insight into the history of globalised trade and its impact in Australia.

Ultimately Michelides Ltd ceased trading in 1960, unable to compete with the British and American corporations (Rothmans and British Tobacco) who controlled 90 per cent of the Australian market – a situation that evolved directly from the Menzies government’s removal of protective tariffs.

Michael Michelides, beloved husband of Ellen, died early, in 1953, at the age of 61. Peter’s life, shared with his devoted wife Pearl for half a century, ended in 1966 at the age of 88. The legacy left in their children is the compelling content of the second part of this formidable family history.

The poignant portraits of their offspring, three boys and four girls, all born between 1910 and 1924, tell as profound a story as their parents’. It’s the photographs that say as much, if not more than the words: Peter’s eldest, Spero (Sam), at work in the factory, younger sons Manny and Michael in uniform before heading to England to join the RAN and RAAF in 1944, daughter Daphne’s certificate, having been crowned Perth’s ‘Miss Greece’, for raising funds for servicemen in 1943, Michael’s only child, Spero, (known as Spike) at the wheel of a Jaguar racing car breaking WA’s speed record; and the beautiful portrait of Jasmine who died so tragically young at the age of 19.

These intimate heirlooms have rarely been seen outside the family. It’s unlikely that any commercially-published book has ever before detailed with such devotion and insight the triumphs and adversities of one family of first generation Greek Australians. To share such personal stories is to take a road less travelled, but then, that’s always been the Michelides way.

The Tobacco Pioneers: Michelides – A Family History is published by Vivid Publishing, Fremantle. ISBN 9781925209686 (paperback), and is available at www.vividpublishing.com.au/michelides RRP: $50.