Fletcher Jones was born in
Bendigo, Victoria, the son of a
Cornish miner. In his childhood he had a stammer, but he practised reading aloud to manage this. He left school at age 12. He served with
Australian forces in France in
World War I where he suffered
shell shock after being buried alive for several hours. On his return his stammer had returned, but he was determined to manage it so he commenced a door-to-door sales business in
Melbourne. He then decided to become a hawker in the western Victorian region. He purchased a menswear store in
Warrnambool in 1924. His business expanded, and in 1941 he decided to form a new wholesale business making nothing but high-quality ready-made trousers. The business was boosted by a war time contract for army pants, and rapidly made a reputation for hard-wearing, 'coverdine' work trousers, for men on the land. By 1945 his Warrnambool rooms were supplying 123 retailers in four States, but he then decided to sell directly, to insist on personal fittings, and to accept cash only. When his first shop opened in Collins Street, Melbourne, on 23 June 1946, the response was astonishing, with queues stretching for blocks. and was made a
knight bachelor in 1974 for services to decentralisation and the community. Being located in a
major wool producing area, Fletcher Jones concentrated for many years on using the best local wool in its garments, and by the 1960s, was the largest Australian user of fine merino wool. Although he had always expressed
Labor sympathies in word and deed, he publicly renounced his political allegiances when the Labor Prime Minister
Gough Whitlam and his wife
Margaret made it known they were agnostics. His first wife died in 1970, and he remarried in 1971 to Ada Wells, née Pettigrove. He published his autobiography
Not By Myself in 1976. Fletcher Jones died in Warrnambool in 1977, and was buried there. He was survived by his second wife Ada, and by the daughter and two sons of his first marriage. His company was sold in 1998. ==Legacy==