Golden Fleece (Australia) advertising material and garagenalia

Golden Fleece was the brand of petroleum and related products marketed and distributed by the Australian Company H.C. Sleigh which was established by Harold Crofton Sleigh as a shipping and import/export business in Melbourne in 1895. H.C. Sleigh took over the first consignment of Californian motor spirit imported to Australia arrived in 1913 and marketed it as Golden Fleece.

By the 1930s the company had established 20 service stations in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide to sell its own products. The stations provided full drive-in facilities. Harold Crofton Sleigh died in 1933 and was succeeded by Hamilton Sleigh, who had been taken into the partnership in 1924. Following the outbreak of World War II motor spirit rationing was introduced in Australia in 1940 as an emergency routine measure, but was not removed until 1950, by the then newly formed Menzies government.

In the early 1950s the merino more... ram (modelled by “David of Dalkeith”) became the company’s trade mark and was a familiar and comforting symbol to the motorist and around the same time added the Golden Fleece restaurant facility to its service stations. At its height, H.C. Sleigh Limited operated the largest restaurant chain in the country.

The end of the Golden Fleece brand occurred in 1981 when H.C. Sleigh’s Petroleum division was sold to Caltex. less...