Malcolm George King

Malcolm George King
(1918 - )

Malcolm was born in Newtown, Sydney on March 13th 1918. He was the son of Michael Harry and Alice Gott King.

His primary education was at Enmore and Stanmore Public schools, and for secondary school attended Canterbury Boy's High School.

He studied at Sydney Technical College between 1935 and 1938 to gain a Mechanical Engineering Diploma. He attended Sydney University between 1940 and1943 and there gained a Bachelor of Engineering degree.

During his fourth year of high school King had decided to pursue a career in engineering and had therefore to organise a trade apprenticeship. In 1934, when he was 15 years old, he began to work at CSR, a job that was to last for fifty years. This job was very hard to come by in the Depression years but his good Intermediate Certificate results, especially in mathematics, helped. King spent the next five years completing CSR's specialised training program, while at the same time studying for his Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at Sydney Technical College, which he received in 1938. His apprenticeship was completed in 1939.

CSR preferred university graduates and were willing to continue to pay staff while they attended university. King went to Sydney University to complete a Bachelor of Engineering, working at CSR during holidays and for his three month practical component.

After his graduation in 1943 King was appointed as Project Engineer in charge of building materials. In 1945 he spent some time travelling in America, researching different methods of manufacturing. Following the war, CSR attempted to maximise on Australian raw materials for building products and King was highly involved in the development of asbestos as a building material. During the late 1940's he also travelled to South Africa and Canada to investigate asbestos.

During the 1950's. he became involved with the Institute of Management, arranging and participating in lectures on materials handling and factory layout. In this time King held a number of different titles:

Factory Superintendent - Gypsum Board Plant (1947-1950),

Technical Superintendent - CSR Building Materials (1950-1955),

Assistant General Manager - CSR Building Materials (1955-1960) and

General Manager-CSR Building Materials (1960-1972).

He attended a class at the Harvard School of Business Administration in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1955 and later attended a business administration school in Davos, Switzerland.

In 1972 King was appointed as one of five, as the new management group when the previous group retired. As part of this group, he managed the sugar interests, later becoming Chairman of Directors of Australian Estates, this included pastoral interests as well as sugar interests and through this role he did a lot of travelling through Queensland and the Northern Territory.

King then became Chairman of Directors of CSR Chemicals, mainly concerned with industrial matters, such as staff recruitment and research. King was appointed as a trustee of the staff superannuation funds in 1980 and after twenty years of service he was invited to join the Board of Perpetual Trustees.

King was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to industry on Australia Day 1981. He was on the Board of the Benevolent Society between 1978 and 1992, a Trustee with the Powerhouse Museum and later appointed the President of the museum. He retired from CSR during the 1980's but remained busy since that time, as a member of the judging panel for the Institution of Engineers NSW Excellence Awards, a foundation member of the Warren Centre at Sydney University and an Honorary Governor of this same centre since 1991.

Prepared by Patricia Taaffe, December 2002 from oral history interviews conducted on 22 April 1998.

To access an oral history interview with Malcolm George King please use this link:'

https://heritage.engineersaustralia.org.au/wiki/Oral_Histories_Sydney