The Woolworths man

With Countdown rebranding as Woolworths - again, it seems to have come full circle.
Woolworths had been a household name for decades in New Zealand with the first shop being opened on Wellington's Cuba Street in 1929.  
The man responsible was Harold Percy Christmas who expanded this into a chain of stores selling general merchandise.
By the 60's the chain formed a larger company with Farmers Trading and Milne and Choyce then the first supermarket opened in Hastings in 1965.
But Percy Christmas who started it all never got to see that.
Christmas was born on May 5, 1886, in Kiama, New South Wales to bank clerk Robert and his wife Mary.
He received a traditional education and aged 16 left school to become a commercial traveller.  He was a warehouse manager when he married Constance Veta Southouse in 1912.  She unfortunately died two years later.
On 16 January, 1917, at St James's Church, Sydney, he married Thirza Millard Phillips.
Then, almost by accident, he bought a book he thought was a detective novel.  Called The Clock without Hands it turned out to be about advertising.  It led him to do a correspondence course and convinced him that advertising was the key to success.  
He went into partnership with a former department manager in David Jones Ltd to sell clothes by mail order, but it was not as successful as hoped.
So they tried opening a shop.  Christmas registered Woolworths Ltd in 1924 using the advertising slogan  "Woolworth's Stupendous Bargain Basement” because the first shop was in a basement of a building.
He created new sales methods using an understanding of how ordinary people behaved although not all of his methods were legit.  He took great trouble to hire staff but had applicants examined by a phrenologist (head reader).
He began expanding around Australia and into New Zealand.
In World War II he was controller of the New South Wales division of the Australian Defence Canteens Service.
Percy retired as managing director of Woolworths in 1945.  He died suddenly at Bordeaux, France on June 19, 1947.  His body was returned to Australia and buried in the Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

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