Alfred Simpson (1805–1891), manufacturer, started his professional life as a tinsmith in his native London and also worked as a hatter before financial difficulties caused him to emigrate to Australia in 1849. Arriving in Adelaide with his wife, Sarah (née Neighbour, 1806–1874), whom he’d married in London in 1838, Simpson tried his hand at various ventures, also spending two stints on the Victorian goldfields while Sarah remained in Adelaide working as a piano teacher. In 1853 he opened a tinsmithing business in Topham Street, Adelaide. Known as the Colonial Tinware Manufactory, the business quickly expanded, by 1863 necessitating a move to bigger premises on Gawler Place. The company produced agricultural implements, pots and pans, and cans for a jam factory. Joined in the business by his son, Alfred Muller Simpson, he then branched into products such as ovens, gas stoves and bedsteads, as well as ‘Adelaide Patent Fire and Thief Proof Safes’, famous for their purported ability to withstand attempts to explode them with dynamite. The business started manufacturing munitions in the 1880s and by the time of his death in 1891, Alfred Simpson presided over the largest metal manufacturing business in Australia: A Simpson & Sons. Alfred Muller Simpson carried on the business following his father’s death, opening another works in 1894 and later in that decade beginning the production of enamel-plated goods. Alfred M Simpson’s two sons, Alfred Allen Simpson (known as Allen) and Frederick Neighbour Simpson also entered the family business, becoming directors in 1910. The company began producing white goods in the 1940s and various household appliances are still produced under the Simpson brand. Alfred Allen Simpson, who served as Mayor of Adelaide from 1913 to 1915, was associated with the Royal Geographical Society and consequently with Douglas Mawson, who named Cape Simpson in Antarctica after his friend. The Simpson Desert was also named after him, by Mawson’s colleague, Cecil Madigan.
