VALE
With deep regret, we announce the death of our much loved and highly respected
MRS. NELLIE CHANDLER
Director and Original Staff Superintendent and Staff Trainer of FJ Trousers, Ltd.
Mrs. Chandler & Horace Verey together provided the original creative management for this company
Much of this organisation is a memorial to the leadership of this very wonderful lady.
FJ Staff Bulletin or Do You Know 18.12.1964
"The incredible Mrs Nellie Chandler was the first sewing teacher and staff manager for FJ Trousers in Warrnambool. She had been the sewing mistress at the Purnim West State School near Warrnambool. When her husband died, leaving her with two young children, she shifted into Warrnambool and for a long time quietly hid her light under a bushel. Then she joined us as a trouser machinist. One day we all got a shock. Our cutting room manager left us. He and his wife had come from Melbourne; he has a cutting room manager, she as sewing machine manageress. We had enthusiastic ideas about staff participation in management. Management by consultation we called it. At that time it was unknown in our industry and these people could not adjust themselves to our strange ways. However Horace Verey and Nellie Chandler were there, seemingly ready for such an emergency. They did astoundingly well; the two experts were hardly missed. Nellie Chandler took chare of all sewing operations and Horace Verey the rest. Both were naturals."
Excerpt from Chapter 51 Nellie Chandler from Fletcher's 1976 autobiography Not By Myself
