Many Australians had their first piano lesson on a Wertheim piano, and some of these instruments still serve as a student piano for beginners. But who was the man behind the name?
Hugo Wertheim left Frankfurt for Australia in 1875, after marrying his cousin Sophie, but unlike the wave of immigrants who came before him to dig for a fortune in Victoria's goldfields, he already was a wealthy man.
Sent by his father, Meyer Wertheim, to travel the globe as an agent for the family's sewing machine business, Hugo's first moves were to open showrooms in Bourke and Collins streets. But it was here that Jeff Kennett's great grandfather noticed that pianos, not sewing machines, were in short supply in the New World.

Brashs and Allans were two of the smaller retailers in a city with a dozen music sellers. As he had no expertise in making pianos, Hugo sent his eldest son, Herbert, to learn the trade in America and tour the Continent before returning to run the new Melbourne enterprise.

Hugo prepared for his son's return by ploughing E25,000 into a piano factory on four acres in Bendigo Street, Richmond. Hugo's investment was of such significance that Prime Minister Alfred Deakin laid the factory's foundation stone on 21 October 1908 at what is now the GTV Nine studios.

Hugo Wertheim was an unassuming man but did not do things by halves. He commissioned architect Mr Nahum Barnet, who had worked for Steinway, Bechstein, Kaps and others, to design a prestigious factory that compared with the best in the world. The result was an imposing 50,000 square red brick factory, where 300 employees produced up to 2000 pianos a year, including 12 grands.

Hugo's enterprising spirit and political acumen paid off, financially and socially. In 1926, Australians bought more than 24,000 pianos and the industry generated some E3,250,000. The Wertheim piano enjoyed such acclaim that Dame Nellie Melba is said to have refused to perform with anything else.
Papa Herbert had to quite often go and make sure there was a piano there for her," his grand-daughter recalls.

The Victorian establishment was soon won over, and a generation of Wertheim's, who were non-practising Jews, were to enjoy Melbourne Club status at a time of anti-Semitism. In a snapshot of social prosperity, the marriage of , Gladys Wertheim, to Major William Fanning at Melbourne Grammar's Chapel of St Peter in 1924, featured on the ``Recent Victorian Weddings" page of the stylish glossy magazine, The Home. Gladys, the youngest of Hugo's six children, was 21 when she married the son of the Sydney-born merchant, Edward Fanning. Her father-in-law was listed in Fred John's 1914 Annual of Australia's Prominent People for chairing the Australian Board of Directors of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency.

Gladys Wertheim travelled the world, was educated by private tutors, and lived in a Toorak mansion in Linlithgow Road, which rivalled Ripponlea. Gladys' flamboyant brother Sos, who was christened Rupert, brought celebrity status on the family. and had a reputation as a playboy, entertaining the well- heeled at his Portsea residence. He was also one of the country's top six tennis players of the 1920s. His private resources and sheer tenacity enabled him to play a Davis Cup rubber in 1922 with Sir Norman Brookes against Czechoslovakia. Although not selected in the Australian team, Sos travelled to America at his own expense to follow the local side, and was enlisted after a late withdrawal. with so many family businesses, it was the third generation that watched the empire crumble.

None of the third generation was interested in running the business, which was also a victim of the 1929 depression. The Wertheim's struggled on by joining forces with three competitors Allan's, Paling's and Sutton's at the Richmond site.
But Melbourne's love affair with the Wertheim Player Piano a pianola ended with the wireless and the factory closed in 1935 after producing 18,000 pianos.,

H. J. Heinz took over the Wertheim Piano Factory for its canning operation, before it was sold to Channel 9 in the 1950s.

Wertheim pianos are now handcrafted under the strict quality control of World of Music "