Graham Hosking’s father, Perc Hosking, didn’t know when he joined the Air Force at the start of WWII that he would become a watchmaker and jeweller – or that he would become Frankston’s first Mayor. This year, Graham Hosking and his family’s jewellery company celebrate their 80th anniversary.
The Hosking family came with the Gold Rush, emigrating from Cornwall in about 1850. Graham’s grandfather was personal secretary to one of Australia’s first Prime ministers, Lord Bruce, but during the Great Depression, times were tough. The family had to relocate from the city to their holiday home in Frankston.
Graham takes up the story. “Dad grew up as a baby during the Great Depression with a lot of kids that were worse off than he was; kids who couldn’t afford shoes. He used to tell the story of how he went to school dressed in the best that Mum could afford and how she found him coming home from school one day with his shoes tied around his neck; he just wanted to be barefoot like his mates.
“When the Second World War started, Dad joined the RAAF. He was good with his hands and was in one of the ‘glamour’ industries at the time, radio, maintaining and installing them; the equivalent at the time of being in the computer industry. The RAAF said, ‘We’ve got heaps of radio men. Are you any good with your hands?’ He said he was, and they said, ‘Right, you’re a watchmaker, a clockmaker, an aircraft instrument maker.’ He said, ‘I don’t know anything about repairing aircraft instruments or an aircraft anything.’ They said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll teach you.’ So, because of a shortage of people with dexterity, he ended up being appointed by some clerk as an instrument maker on aircraft and served the whole war in the bomber the seventh squadron of Bomber Command.”
Perc didn’t hold a grudge against his former enemy. “Dad had a very good attitude towards getting over the war,” Graham says, “and when he joined Rotary, later on, he had a good attitude towards the Japanese people. The war was over; the hatred was over, and the sooner they got rid of that, the better. He was a pretty bright sort of dude.
“He was very service-oriented based on having a very conscientious father and mother; he wanted to succeed and care for his family, and he wanted to grow. He started a number of businesses, not just the watchmaking and repair business. Because of the engineering skills that he learned as an instrument maker, he and another fellow started a business making coin-operated machines. They designed and built Australia’s first coin-operated jukebox. All through the fifties, at the beginning of the rock era, they had these big jukeboxes all around the country.
An off shoot of that was coin-operated telescopes on top of Mount Lofty and on top of the towers in Sydney Harbour and Melbourne Airport. “One of my very first jobs was to drive from Frankston to Essendon to try and find out what had stopped the coin-operated machines. Kids would put bent copper coins and ice cream sticks in them. The machines were successful. And profitable. But the main thing that they did was pay for the education of my three sisters and myself. In my case, I think Dad thought, ‘I wasted my money’,” Graham says, laughing.
Perc Hosking joined the Frankston Council around 1950 with a great social conscience for the benefit of the community. Sewering Frankston in the early 60s was an important project for Perc. He was the last Shire President and the first Mayor of Frankston.
Graham was now running one branch of the business, which was the watch repair and jewellers shop in Frankston. “I did a lot of travelling, and that helped me find sources of product that were much cheaper than if I was buying through conventional retailers and wholesalers. This allowed me to move from being exclusively a watch and clock repairer to being a jewellery company. I relocated the business from Young Street to the centre of Frankston.” When the landlord increased Graham’s rent to an alarming degree, he started a campaign to open other stores. “One day, I woke up, and I had grey hair,” he jokes.
Graham’s Dad had a very particular set of values around family, running a business and employing people, which Graham has continued.
Graham’s Dad had a very particular set of values around family, running a business and employing people, which Graham has continued. “We’ve had employees who’ve been with us for more than forty years, and that’s a continuation of the culture that Dad started. If people had abilities and interests and were keen and enthusiastic, then you’d give them opportunities for advancement, and we’ve had some really beaut long-term employees and still have.”
The business is also very family-oriented “I think most businesses start off that way,” says Graham. “I joined an organisation called ‘Family Business Australia’, and interestingly enough, the oldest businesses in Australia that are still in the hands of the family were horse and buggy cart businesses that evolved into bus lines. Most were started by entrepreneurial people like my father and were built up by the next generation, and then the generation after that either succeeds or fails. In our case, my son is up in Darwin running one branch of the business, and my son-in-law, Tony Nash, is running the Frankston branch. Hopefully, the business will continue, but you can’t tell today.
“I feel that it’s important to have good people with you on whatever journey you’re on. In our industry, the majority of people that are employed here are female. Having three older sisters, I’ve always recognised that women are often better employees than men. Women have the desire to be honest, conscientious, work well and be respected. If you’ve got good people, it’s good to advance them and give them opportunities. It’s something I’ve been all too willing to do because I think they’re better than I am.”
Graham has no intention of leaving Frankston. “I’ve always enjoyed living here. Frankston, Seaford, Mount Eliza, it’s a beaut area to be. It’s close to the beaches on both sides of the bay. The rural areas of the peninsula have been an important part of my life, particularly with my interest in aviation, which again evolved from my father in the Air Force.” Graham has a fine collection of vintage aircraft housed at the Peninsula Aero Club at Tyabb Airport.
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