Sir Jack Ellerton Becker FAA (4 October 1904, in

Unley, South Australia Unley is an inner-southern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, within the City of Unley. The suburb is the home of the Sturt Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Unley neighbours Adelaide Park Lands, Fullarto ...

– 9 May 1979, in

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), was a South Australian entrepreneur. In the 1920s and 1930s, he capitalised on the developing craze for music making his first fortune when he sold his highly successful Adelaide College of Music in 1942. In the 1940s and 1950s,

land speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many s ...

in the

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and the area that became

Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...

yielded two further fortunes. Becker contracted to give £200,000 to the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

over ten years when it was having financial problems in the early 1960s. Becker was appointed a fellow of the academy in 1961 and received a knighthood in 1962. In 1971, Becker and his wife retired to Pembroke, Bermuda. He died on 9 May 1979, and the academy was bequeathed an additional $3 million in his will. The academy's Canberra headquarters was for a time named Becker House in his honour. First published in ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 13, (MUP), 1993. In contrast to Howell's rather jaded and matter-of-fact 1993 biography in the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Rogers 1982 biography in ''Historical Records of Australian Science'' paints a much brighter picture of Becker's abilities and "benevolence". Originally published in ''Historical Records of Australian Science'', vol. 5, no. 3, Canberra, Australia, 1982.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Becker, Jack Ellerton Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Australian Knights Bachelor 1904 births 1979 deaths