Peter Ward Harris 12/6/1939 -8/3/2023
Peter Ward Harris, who grew up in Narrandera, passed away on March 8 this year.
Peter grew up in a home on the corner of William St and Victoria Avenue Narrandera, a home his father built after the Second World War. He still has some old friends in Narrandera and his aunt Mrs Audrey Lean (nee Ward) still lives in Narrandera with her husband of Ken Lean. His cousin Glen Ward runs the Lost Narrandera site on Facebook.
Peter Ward Harris was the loving son of Herbert Harris (dec) and Florence Harris (dec), brother to John (dec), husband to Janet Harris, father to Luke and Matthew, father-in-law to Anita and Camille and grandfather to Thomas, Louis, James and Paul.
Peter was born in Auckland (New Zealand) and his parents Bert and Flo had moved from Australia to Auckland and set up a wool shop. After Peter was born World War 2 started and his father moved the family back to Australia.
Peter was around six months old and Burt served in the Australian Airforce at Wagga Wagga, just near their home town of Narrandera, where Peter grew up and his mother had a highly successful high end women’s clothing store.
His grandparents owned the Star Hotel where they lived during the war, opposite the Narrandera train station. Peter would help his grandparents around the hotel and when he was older he worked in the bar and restaurant dealing with all sorts of customers.
He attended Narrandera Public School and then became a boarder at Yanco Agricultural High where he was studying to work on the land.
Around 1954, his parents purchased a sheep station in Walcha NSW. Walcha has always been known as a sheep grazing area due to the harsh climate.
Peter would spend his school holidays working on the farm, fixing fences, building a shearing shed and a house and became a very good horseman. After he finished school, he moved to the farm.
Eventually he decided he would like to do something for himself and became a debt collector in Condobolin NSW, then a finance broker dealing with York Motors in Sydney. This is where he met his first and only wife Jan, who was the secretary to the owner of York Motors and she could not work out why Peter would come around all the time. They got married in 1966 and had two boys years later.
Peter moved on to office manager at Grace Brothers Broadway, marketing manager at Norco Foods, marketing manager at Sunburst Foods, then marketing manager at Pacific Manufacturing. This is when he could see an opportunity in creating his own brand of skin care products, so Arbré was born and Peter and Janet Harris started their journey into the beauty therapy industry.
Founder and owner of Arbré Beauty Programs, the original Arbré products were sold by party plan in the early 1980s and Peter had a very good business relationship with John Allan from JC Allen Packaging who helped Peter out with the original product range.
Peter then set up a beauty salon in the Dymocks building, George Street Sydney then a second salon in Church Street Parramatta, which was both a salon and a beauty therapy college, promoting and developing the Arbré product range.
Whilst he was at Parramatta he developed a formula to manufacture depilatory wax, so the salon was sold and he moved into a small factory in Hornsby and started manufacturing depilatory wax. This business quickly grew into other skin care products and salon professional beauty programs.
Peter enjoyed visits from all suppliers, discussing new high-end ingredients and formulations. He would take the information home and read it after dinner. He was greatly interested in ingredients and always looking for active ingredients that would really work to improve the appearance of the skin. His business built fairly quickly and he soon had a strong customer base in Australia and was exporting products to Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Over time Arbré had four factory units in Hornsby NSW, and then in the year 2000 Arbré made the big move to a new industrial estate in Thornton near Newcastle. This purpose-built manufacturing facility was opened by the Premier of NSW.
Peter was always involved in Arbré – his true passion – with well over 40 years in the industry and always enjoyed learning, growing, and working in the beauty industry. His son Luke and daughter in law Anita now run the business and are continually looking at new high end cosmeceutical ingredients and delivery systems for skin care products.
Peter was extremely proud of his business, all employees past and present and of course all the support from the cosmetic industry.
His impact on the Australian beauty community will live on and he will be dearly missed by loved ones, friends and many business associates spanning over 40 years.
This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 8 June 2023.
