56 | FLIGHTPATH
His aviation activities only lasted two
years, but Clement John de Garis was the
first person in Australia to use an aircraft
extensively for business purposes. Briggs
therefore could be considered Australia’s
first company pilot.
On 28 June 1921, formal registration of
Australian civil aircraft came into being.
F2691 became G-AUCM, registered in the
name of C. J. de Garis. On 28 August 1922, it
was sold to Larkin Aircraft Supply Company
who named it ‘Scrub Bird’. On 18 January
1927, it was sold to Bulolo Goldfields Aero-
plane Service, in New Guinea. It was taken
over by Morlae Airline in Lae, New Guinea,
in June 1929 and was struck off the register
on 15 July 1930.
MacPherson Frederick Robertson
was born into a poor family on 6 September
1859 at Ballarat where his father tried to
earn a living as a digger on the Ballarat
goldfields. Developing a very early interest
in the confectionary trade, he began an ap-
prenticeship at the age of fifteen in a large
confectionary business in Melbourne. Soon
after finishing his apprenticeship, the
young man started to manufacture his own
confectionary in the family bathroom. The
business slowly prospered until it became
the largest confectionary business in the
southern hemisphere, employing some
3000 people, under the name of MacRobert-
son Chocolates.
With his increasing wealth, he embraced
philanthropy, particularly to local sporting
bodies. He was approached by Horrie Miller
in 1927 for financial assistance to start an
airline. The approach was successful, with
Miller ordering a de Havilland DH.61. Rob-
ertson asked that the aircraft be named
‘Old Gold’ after MacRobertson’s most fa-
mous chocolate. Thus began the MacRob-
ertson Miller Aviation Company, which be-
came MacRobertson Miller Airlines in
Western Australia.
Robertson was fascinated by aviation, so
when he was approached in 1933 to provide
the prize money for an International Air
Race from London to Melbourne as part of
Victoria’s centenary celebrations, he readily
agreed. The race, known as the MacRobert-
son Centenary Air Race, started from
Mildenhall on 20 October 1934, and the first
aircraft arrived in Melbourne, de Havilland
Comet G-ACSS, just under 71 hours later.
Robertson is reported to have financial-
ly assisted Sir Charles Kingsford Smith to
enter the race. Various reports put Rob-
ertson’s contribution as ranging from £500
to £15,000. The exact figure is probably
somewhere between the two amounts. He
received a Knighthood in 1935 and died in
August 1945 at almost 85 years of age.
When one delves into the history of Aus-
tralian aviation, it soon becomes obvious
that very few of the aviation names
had any of their own money to invest
in their aeronautical endeavours, and re-
lied entirely on people like the aforemen-
tioned who stood firmly and squarely ‘in
the wings’.A line-up of aircraft at the Glenroy Aerodrome. The de
Garis DH.4 is on the left still wearing its RAF serial F2691.
ABOVE: Portrait of
Sir MacPherson
Robertson.LEFT: VH-UTL, the
de Havilland DH.61
named ‘Old Gold’.
Photographed at
Mt. Gambier in- [South
Australian State
Library, Photo
B.15479]
BELOW: The
winning Comet,
G-ACSS, soon after
landing at
Laverton.