By Jude Paul, Bulletin 01/2025, March

True or False?

  • Duncan wanted to be a chef
  • Duncan has his own sofa in Parliament House
  • Duncan’s father pencilled for an SP bookmaker
  • Duncan’s great-grandfather was a property developer in Glebe

All the above are true!

Duncan was born and raised in Moree. His father William, who grew up in Sans Souci, had gone ‘on the wallaby’ as a teenager following the early death of both his parents, eventually settling in Moree by the mid-late 1920s. His mother, Olga (Ireland), had taken a posting to Moree at the local high school, teaching English and History. As a teenager, originally from Tamworth, his mother had been awarded a bursary to complete her secondary education at Sydney Girls’ High where she excelled in Classics and later a scholarship to study English and History at Sydney University for her BA. Olga and William married in Moree in 1934.

Some toddlers have a blanky, but Duncan had his hammer, which he frequently used to drive nails into surfaces both inside and outside the house (Photo supplied)

For Duncan, Moree was a perfectly reasonable place to grow up and by the time he was born his parents had a well-established home there, for themselves and their seven children. Duncan, the 7th child was born when the 6th, Roger, was already 8-years-old and the oldest child, Frank, was 16. Duncan recalls the Leys household was full of books, especially history books. He remembers his father being an avid reader and a frequent library user.

Duncan clearly remembers his mother telling him, then aged 14, that he wasn’t allowed to join his mates at the swimming pool where much of the interaction between locals and the 1965 Freedom Riders was taking place. His mother had spent some of her early years in Fiji where her father worked as an engineer for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company and was aware of the ugly results of racially-motivated mob violence. The same afternoon, the Mayor of Moree overturned the statute preventing Aboriginal children swimming in the local pool. The freedom riders joined Aboriginal children in the pool to celebrate.

And yes, Duncan did want to be a chef. He was interviewed at East Sydney College for a place in the Hotel and Catering Management course. At this interview, the interviewer thought Duncan’s HSC result in Maths (2F) and Science (2F) meant he’d failed Maths and Science!1 Duncan packed up his papers and left the interview.

A brother-in-law suggested Business Studies and this seems to have been all it took for Duncan to pursue this field. He enrolled part-time at what is now UTS in Business Studies. He worked as a trainee accountant at Dairy Farmers, thinking the Dairy Farmers offices were conveniently located opposite the UTS campus. They weren’t, but he stuck with both.

Sebel’s Integra chair. This version of the Integra has arms (Photo: www.sebelfurniture.com)

Duncan graduated as an accountant, working firstly for Gollin and Co., a commodities trading company (the size of whose financial collapse in 1975 was second only to the Bond Corporation’s 15 or so years later), Blue Metal Industries Ltd and then for Sebel Furniture at Bankstown – better pay and a car. By this time in the early 1980s Duncan was married, had a son and was living in Campbelltown.

In 1974, Harry Sebel became the first manufacturer in the world to produce a monobloc plastic chair, the Integra chair. This chair, designed by Charles Furey, won the Australian Design Award in 1977. It was lightweight, stackable and non-destructible and to this day remains a popular chair in many functional settings, including American prisons. When Duncan joined the company, Harry Sebel still owned it, but in 1982 Sebel sold the company, although the name Sebel Furniture was retained. The man who came to reorganise the Sydney office turned out to be a neighbour of Duncan’s family in Moree; Duncan became the Commercial Manager.

Duncan’s sofas in Parliament House, Canberra (Photo: supplied)

In 1999, Duncan and a colleague from Sebel established their own company, Commercial Seating Systems, in Smithfield. This company produced office chairs, ergonomic computer chairs and soft furnishings, and yes, Duncan’s company was granted a contract to supply leather sofas for Parliament House. The specifications for the sofas were very precise, including the use of UV-stabilised orange sewing thread, which was not manufactured in Australia at the time. Duncan recalls having to place a minimum order with an English manufacturer for 20 cones, although he knew that less than one was all that was needed for the job. (Duncan wonders if the other 19 are stored somewhere in the bowels of Parliament House.) These sofas, still in use today, are some of more than 25,000 pieces of furniture designed, manufactured and procured for Parliament House to showcase Australia’s high-quality design and craftsmanship.

Glebe–Forest Lodge and Duncan?

Duncan says that when he retired in 2015, the design and location of the Harold Park apartments prompted him to buy there as a city base, complementing the family home in Leumeah and a weekender in Wentworth Falls. He joined the Glebe Society, becoming Convenor of the Transport & Traffic Subcommittee. He was soon caught in Ian Stephenson’s infectious enthusiasm for Glebe’s architectural and social history, a general interest nurtured and fostered in the Leys’ Moree household.

And Glebe does have a special significance for Duncan. Between 1878 and their deaths in 1911, Duncan’s paternal great-grandparents William Hill and Caroline Heness, married in 1859 in Chippendale, lived at 14 Oxley Street Glebe, a grand house on the Blackwattle Bay foreshore. Mabel Hill, one of their 13 surviving children, grew up in this house. Mabel married John Leys at the house in 1897.

This photo, taken in about 1885 shows 14 Oxley Street (on the right) from the rear including its land running down to the water’s edge of Blackwattle Bay (Source: NLA)

It was the relatively early deaths of both John and Mabel in their 40s in 1911 that led to their son William’s sojourn ‘on the wallaby’, which ended in Moree. Duncan has since learnt that great-grandfather William Hill, who was recorded in early Sands Directories as a bricklayer, owned a large property portfolio in the inner city, including 1–17 Campbell Street Glebe in the Bishopthorpe Estate. In the valuation for Stamp Duty after William’s death, these houses were described as being in poor condition. William may have been a slum landlord …

Large families are a common thread in Duncan’s family history. His maternal great-grandfather John Graham was transported to Tasmania in 1839 at age 12. He was recorded as a repeat offender in the crime of theft and his record noted he was 4’ 4” tall at the time (132 centimetres). John left Tasmania some time after he was granted freedom and aged 32, he married 14-year-old Sarah Ingram. They settled in the Dubbo area in a slab hut John built on a selection he’d been granted, which they named Dilladerry Station. John and Sarah had 16 children who survived to adulthood. One of their daughters, Mary, married William Ireland – Duncan’s maternal grandparents.

And yes, Duncan’s father was a weekend penciller for an SP bookmaker to supplement his wage as a surveyor’s chainman and a storeman for the local county council. Walking past the local blacksmith’s shop on any Saturday afternoon, Duncan could hear loud cheering erupt from the building every so often as punters cheered their preferred horse towards the finishing line. Duncan recalls a general tolerance for SP bookmakers in Moree; this extended to his father’s arrest several times for his role in this activity. His father’s pencilling work ended when the local magistrate warned him with an amused wink ‘Mr Smith, if you appear before me again, you will receive a custodial sentence.’

Duncan’s maternal great-grandmother Sarah Graham (born Ingram) and family at her home called Dilladerry, in Dubbo, in 1902. Sarah is the lower of two women sharing a chair. At the time this photo was taken, Sarah’s husband, John Graham had died. One of John and Sarah’s children was Mary Graham who, with William Ireland, were the parents of Olga, Duncan’s mother. Mary is not in this photo (Photo supplied).

Note 1: The HSC replaced the Leaving Certificate in 1967. It offered subjects at different levels. For most subjects, levels were 1, 2 and 3, with level 1 being the most difficult, and the higher the level, the more time was spent in class. Maths and Science differed from all other subjects in several respects: level 2 was divided into level 2 Full (2F) and level 2 Short (2S), 2F being a higher level than 2S; more hours were required per level; and the number of possible marks was higher. While we still have the HSC, it’s been modified a lot since 1967.