Sayers, Allport & Potter, later Sayers, Allport Proprietary, was an Australian wholesale pharmaceutical and veterinary supply business based in Sydney, whose principal market was the pastoral and agricultural industries of New South Wales. They were particularly known, or notorious, for two products: "S.A.P.", a phosphorus-based poison aimed at combating the rabbit pest, and "Thal-Rat", a thallium-based poison used against rats.
History
The company was formed in 1890 by two brothers, Roland Allport and Robert Knight Allport as "Sayers and Allport", and joined the following year by Andrew L. Potter. "Sayers" may have been a, or an entire fiction. Their first office was at 297 George Street, Sydney, and moved to 10–12 Hunter Street, Sydney around the time Potter became a partner. Potter left the business around 1902, but his name was still connected with the firm until late 1912. They moved from 9 O'Connell Street, Sydney to 53–55 Macquarie Street, Sydney in 1912, and was still there when the company was purchased by International Products Ltd. in 1948.
Products
Products supplied to agriculturists over the years included instruments such as "Sayers" brand drench guns, castrating and tailing instruments, cattle syringes and needles. Chemicals marketed in the 1940s and 1950s included drench compounds "Blue-Nik", "Green Seal", and "Phenmix". Other products marketed were "Barconite" for treating "fly-blow" in sheep. Few of these materials would today be available or recommended for the use prescribed. ;S.A.P. In 1902 the company began marketing this poison, which was, where laid, spectacularly successful against the rabbit pest. In 1906 the company purchased the recipe and manufacturing rights for "Rabbo", a similar product, from G. McGirr of Parkes, New South Wales. An active ingredient of "S.A.P." was phosphorus, and was quickly suspected of starting grass fires, such that competing products such as "Vernox" were soon being marketed as being safer in this respect, though "Vernox" and others such as "Deathtrail" and "Grim" all contained free phosphorus, in perhaps different concentrations. The advantage of phosphorus as a poison is that, in dry weather and if not strewn as clumps, it has degraded to innocuous phosphoric acid within a week and harmless to stock. ;Thal-Rat The active compound in this rat poison was thallium sulphate, imported from Germany. Its advantages as a rodenticide, that it was odorless and practically tasteless and swift acting, were also realised by amateur poisoners; it was also inexpensive, required no licence to purchase, gave symptoms similar to known diseases, and one gram was sufficient to despatch an unwanted spouse. Its one disadvantage in this application was that it did not degrade, and could easily be detected many years post mortem. After a spate of such murders in the 1950s, given due prominence in the Australian press, and the exhumation of more suspected victims, its ready sale was prohibited.
The founders
Roland Allportmanaging director, with his brother founded the firm in 1890. He was an international Rugby Union player. His sons R Bret Allport and Jack Manning Allport, a motor mechanic, enlisted with the 1st AIF and served overseas. Jack was released in 1917 to serve with the Royal Flying Corps. Robert Knight Allport was born in London and came out to Sydney around 1885. ;Other interests His son Dr. Robert M. Allport was a medical doctor. Andrew L. Potter was born in Surrey and emigrated to Sydney around 1888. He had a magnificent physique and in his youth was a fine cricketer, footballer, cyclist and golfer. He resigned from the firm to return to England, but did not remain there long, and returned to Sydney, where he joined with pharmacist G. Keith Birks to found the firm of Potter & Birks Ltd. in 1904. He retired from that company in 1916. He never married. He was a brother of James W. Potter, of the English shipowners Birt, Potter and Hughes.
