George

1917

2001

Denis

Greece

Con

Georgiades

Cairns

Australia

Con Denis George (Georgiades) (1917-2001), who preferred to be addressed as Denis George, was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1917 and migrated from Athens to Sydney in 1948. As a youth, Denis had acquired a deep familiarity with the sea, and in 1949, whilst reading for leisure in Sydney’s libraries, he became fascinated by one of Australia’s most abundant marine economic resources: the pearl shell. The thought of possibly cultivating a south seas pearl for commercial distribution germinated, nourished by the fact that the large Australian pearl oyster would provide a cultured pearl much bigger than the small Japanese oysters. Pearl cultivation techniques had been popularly associated with the Japanese, but Denis discovered that during the 1880s and the early 1890s an Australian naturalist, William Saville-Kent, had successfully experimented with south seas pearl oysters and a cultured pearl had resulted.

Denis was a self-taught pearl maker who found his own way to culture pearls and spent decades from the 1950s to the 1980s experimenting and trying to improve his products. His ambition was to culture a unique Australian pearl. He produced pearls mainly from ‘Pinctada maxima’ (gold lip pearl) and ‘P. Margaritifera’ (black lip pearl). He was a maverick in the Australian and Papua New Guinean pearl industry because he refused to collaborate with Japanese pearling companies who dominated pearl culture by keeping their technique secret and forming joint ventures with nationals.

Between 1952 and 1966, Denis experimented with oysters around Stradbroke Island, Cairns, Fitzroy Island, Thursday Island and nearby Packe Island. He then moved to Papua New Guinea and continued his work for the next sixteen years on Pear Island, just off Samarai Island in Milne Bay.

Denis George was never commercially successful but his achievements were remarkable. Not only did he develop his own way to seed pearl oysters, but he also pioneered the culture of pearls from ‘Pteria penguin’, a bivalve known as Butterfly Shell which was not then a recognised pearl shell. He was recognised in Japan and Mexico for his pearling achievements, but was not well known in Australia.

“I worked hard for the development of the pearl cultivation industry. Financially I have failed, but not technically. I did all the dirty work. I’m proud of the industry today.”

Denis was married to Yurie (or Yulie) and had three sons Nick, Theo and Costa. He passed away peacefully in Cairns in 2001.

The National Maritime Museum holds an extensive collection of 442 items relate to the Australian pearl maker Denis George. The series consists of one business card; one set of photographs, slides, negatives and notes; one diagram of a layout of a pearl display; three letters and one envelope concerning the sale of Denis George’s pearls and photography requests; and 435 black and white and colour negatives and photographs of pearling equipment, half pearls, a pearl raft, the 1977 visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Papua New Guinea, pearl production, Packe Island, and wedding photographs of Denis and Yurie George.