H.B. Selby - Scientific Retailers

Samuel Furphy, Selbys the Science People, A History of H.B. Selby Australia Limited, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly, 2005, xi, 369 pp, illus, ISBN 1 74097 092 6 (PB), $39.95.

Book review by Julian Holland

Published in Historical Records of Australian Science, 17 (2006): 121-23.

This is a moral tale. Samuel Furphy describes the rise of a scientific supply business from very modest beginnings in the 1890s to national pre-eminence around 1980, and what happened after.

As a scholarship student at the University of Melbourne, Carl de Beer thought he could provide the necessary chemical glassware and equipment to his fellow students more cheaply than the locally available stock – and supplement his income.  So in 1897 he placed his first order with the German firm of Bornkessel. The venture paid off and another order was placed the following year.  By the end of 1898, the backyard business was prospering to the extent that two of Carl’s brothers were now involved and they sought the assistance of an uncle in London to extend the range of suppliers.  Among the contacts was the German chemical manufacturer, E. Merck of Darmstadt.

Carl’s tragic death in 1899 at the age of 22 disrupted the family but did not end the business.  Carl’s younger brother Ernest had already developed a prominent role in marketing the brothers’ scientific imports.  Operating from his uncle’s office in Melbourne, Ernest assiduously worked to extend the range of customers in order to secure the confidence of suppliers in granting agencies.  In 1900 Ernest secured from Merck the sole agency for Victoria.

With expanding stock and business, Ernest not only required larger premises, he soon needed more capital.  In 1903 he formed a partnership with H.B. Silberberg. Born in 1873 in Branxholme in western Victoria, Silberberg had saved up several hundred pounds working as a miner and storekeeper in Kalgoorlie.  De Beer, Silberberg & Co was short-lived. For reasons that are not clear the partnership proved unsatisfactory and after four months it was dissolved with H.B. buying out Ernest’s share.  This did not prevent H.B. from forming another de Beer partnership – later in 1903 he married Ernest’s sister Aimée.

Under the management of H.B. and later his sons, Esmond and Benn, the business continued to expand for nearly 80 years.  Building on the foundation the de Beer brothers had established, H.B. expanded the scope of the business and the range of agencies.  In 1912, with H.B. Silberberg & Co. operating soundly in Melbourne, H.B. and his family moved to Sydney and established a new scientific retailing business of the same name.  These remained separate companies until brought under the ownership of a holding company in 1949.

The First World War had an important effect on the businesses. Many of the important companies for which Silberbergs had agencies were German and so supply was completely cut off. H.B. compensated for this by placing trial orders with several Japanese companies including Shimadzu & Co., which led to a purchasing trip to Japan in 1917. Anti-German sentiment made Silberberg’s German-sounding name a liability for business, so H.B. changed the family name to Selby, with both businesses becoming H.B. Selby & Co. by 1917.

H.B.’s sons Esmond and Benn joined the Sydney and Melbourne businesses in 1929 and 1936 respectively and so were well placed to continue the development of Selbys when their father died in 1937.  Following the Second World War, the expansion of manufacturing created new opportunities for Selbys, which developed a market for industrial process-control equipment.  Esmond also realized his plan to develop a manufacturing business, known as Analite.  Among its notable achievements, Analite developed one-piece stainless steel analytical masses.

In 1974 Selbys undertook an unusual assignment, the delivery and installation of the aluminizing plant for resurfacing mirrors at the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring in New South Wales.  The plant was built by Edwards High Vacuum, an English firm which Selbys had represented for over 30 years.  The 3.9 metre mirror required large equipment. Selbys was responsible for the transport of more than 50 tonnes of equipment from Sydney to Coonabarabran for installation at Siding Spring.

The expansion of Selbys required new capital.  This led to the establishment of a public company, H.B. Selby Australia Ltd, in 1949.  This holding company acquired all the shares in the Sydney and Melbourne businesses, and in 1951 also acquired Analite. Subsequent share issues continued to dilute the ownership of members of the Selby family.  By the late 1970s Selbys had branches in every state capital, manufacturing plant in Sydney and Melbourne, a New Zealand subsidiary and even a branch in Papua New Guinea. As an asset-rich company with growing sales – over $20 million in 1977 – it was a target for a takeover.  Having fended off a first attempt in 1977, Selbys succumbed to a triple takeover five years later, being swallowed up by Warburton O’Donnell, Comeng and Australian National Industries in rapid succession in 1982-83.

These takeovers meant an end to the involvement of Esmond and Benn Selby in the management of the company.  They had both retired from executive positions by then, and ANI forced them to resign from their positions as directors.  In the midst of these changes the brothers wisely removed the company’s historical records from the offices in Sydney and Melbourne.  Now in the Noel Butlin Archives in Canberra, these records have been drawn on extensively for Furphy’s excellent biography of the company, along with the recollections of former Selby staff.

Two notable features struck me in reading this book, the adaptability of the company and the longevity of the staff. Through war and depression, industrial expansion and technological change, Selbys was able to survive the tough times and exploit new opportunities.  It was H.B. Selby’s genius to exploit the ‘tyranny of distance’ for commercial success.  By maintaining regular personal contact with his suppliers abroad, a practice continued by his successors, H.B. secured and maintained an extensive range of suppliers – an appendix lists several hundred companies for which Selbys were agents or distributors in 1976. By the 1970s however, improvements in transport and communications meant that it was increasingly practicable for international firms to set up their own offices in Australia.  Selbys lost the agency for the American firm Beckman Instruments in 1980.  Selbys had been selling Beckman products since the 1930s and had built up an extensive market.  How Selbys might have adapted to this changing market is hypothetical.  The triple takeover ended the company’s expansion.  Loss of staff and reduction of services followed.  ANI brought a policy of ‘profit before prestige’ to the management of Selbys, which turned the spirit of the company on its head.

Selbys the Science People is very much a story about people.  While the company was expanding and adapting it also provided a working environment that encouraged longevity of employment.  Bob Murray who joined Ernest de Beer in 1901 retired in 1952.  J.T. Pollard, whose able management of the Melbourne business enabled H.B. Silberberg to move to Sydney in 1912, retired in 1969.  There are numerous lesser examples.  One can only wonder at the short-sightedness of the disruptive management practices following the takeovers.  Indeed there is more than a hint that ‘prestige’ or reputation for reliability and service is essential to the profit of such a company.  The Selby name continued through further changes of ownership until 2002, when as part of the Biolab Group, it was finally dropped.  Yet the 2005-6 White Pages lists “Selby Biolab” with a referral to Biolab (Aust) Pty Ltd.

The Selby name continues to be associated with science in Australia through the Selby Fellowships which have been awarded since 1961 and are now funded by the Selby Scientific Foundation.