Kevin Weldon (1933-2023), businessman and philanthropist, spent his early years in Ingham in far north Queensland, where his father ran a car dealership. The family moved to Brisbane during the war; Weldon attended Brisbane Grammar, but left school at sixteen to take up an apprenticeship in the printing trade. In his early twenties, having worked in the engraving department of the Brisbane Truth, he was offered a job as a salesman with a firm named Grenville Publishing. He rose up the ranks and in 1959 was appointed Grenville’s general manager of sales. In this role, Weldon engineered a solution to the company’s considerable debt problems by refocussing its business on the publication of reference and non-fiction titles. His first book as a publisher – Cake decorating and icing by Beryl Gertner – appeared in 1963 and sold 25 000 copies. He then won the role of establishing an Australian arm of the British publishing firm, Hamlyn Books, and as its managing director was responsible for several titles that have since become landmarks, The Margaret Fulton Cookbook (1968) among them.
Gift of Kevin Weldon 2012
© Harvey Shore
Kevin Weldon AM (1 portrait)
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