Ben Fuller (producer)

Sir Benjamin John "Ben" Fuller (20 March 1875 – 10 March 1952) was an English-born Australian theatrical entrepreneur.

Biography

Fuller was born in London to compositor John Fuller and Harriett, née Jones. From December 1884 to February 1885 young Ben appeared in a juvenile production of The Pirates of Penzance at the Savoy Theatre; two years later he was a member of Montague Robey's Midget Minstrels and later joined Warwick Gray's Juvenile Opera Company. His father, also involved in the theatre, migrated to Australia in 1889. Ben followed him after touring England briefly and eventually joined his father in Adelaide. He had also learned to play the piano and the double bass by ear. In 1894, having been joined by younger brother John, the Fullers moved to Auckland, where the elder John set up waxworks and lantern shows with Ben as comedian. The family left Ben in charge in Dunedin and returned to Melbourne, but they soon returned after his success.

On 6 October 1900 Ben Fuller married Jessie Elizabeth Burton, née McDonald, a widow; she bore him a son in 1902 but died in May 1903. He married again, to Elizabeth Mary Thomson on 8 November 1905. The Fullers continued to tour around New Zealand and extended their circuit to Australia, eventually establishing John Fuller & Sons Ltd; Ben based himself in Sydney. He volunteered for active service in World War I. After the war in 1920 he donated £1000 to Vernon Treatt so that he could take up his Rhodes scholarship and he subsequently established the Fuller Trust for overseas training in agriculture. Knighted in 1921, he contested Sydney in the 1922 state elections as an independent without success, and was a Nationalist candidate in the federal election of that year.