Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
The Lord Ashfield 
PC, Kt, TD
A balding, white-haired man wearing 1920s formal business attire (jacket and waistcoat with stripped trousers, with wing collar and tie) sits in an upright chair facing slightly to his left looking at the viewer. A dark background is relieved by a swagged curtain on the left.
Lord Ashfield by Sir William Orpen, circa 1925
In office
10 December 1916 – 26 May 1919
Monarch George V
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Preceded by Walter Runciman
Succeeded by Sir Auckland Geddes
In office
30 May 1919 – 31 October 1947
Preceded by Lord George Hamilton
Succeeded by Lord Latham
Born 8 August 1874 (1874-08-08)
New Normanton, Derbyshire
Died 4 November 1948 (aged 74)
London
Nationality British
Political party Conservative Unionist
Spouse(s) Grace Lowrey

Albert Henry Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield, PC, Kt, TD (8 August 1874 – 4 November 1948), born Albert Henry Knattriess, was managing director, then chairman of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited and later chairman of the London Passenger Transport Board, during the London Underground's greatest period of expansion. He also held political office as President of the Board of Trade between 1916 and 1919.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career in United States

Stanley was born on 8 August 1874, in New Normanton, Derbyshire, England, the son of Henry and Elizabeth Knattreiss (née Twigg). His father worked as a coachbuilder for the Pullman Company, and, in 1880, the family emigrated to Detroit in the United States where he worked at the main factory. During the 1890s, the family changed its name to "Stanley".[1]

In 1888, at the age of 14, Stanley left school and went to work as an office boy at the Detroit Street Railways Company, which ran a horse-drawn tram system. He continued to study at evening school and worked long hours, often from 7.30 am to 10.00 pm.[2] His abilities were recognised early and Stanley was given responsibility for time tables when he was 17. Following the expansion and electrification of the tramway, he became General Superintendent of the company in 1894.[3][4]

Stanley was a naval reservist and, during the brief Spanish–American War of 1898, he served in the United States Navy as a Landsman in the crew of USS Yosemite alongside many others from Detroit.[1][5] In 1903, Stanley moved to New Jersey to become assistant general manager of the street railway department of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey. The company had been struggling, but Stanley quickly improved its organisation and was promoted to general manager of the department in January 1904. In January 1907, he became general manager of the whole corporation running a network of almost 1,000 route miles and 25,000 employees.[1][3]

On 5 December 1904 in Milwaukee, Stanley married Grace Lowrey of New York. The couple had two daughters: Grace Stanley and Marion Woodruff Stanley.[6]

[edit] Career in Britain

[edit] Rescue of the Underground Electric Railways Company

London Transport portal

On 20 February 1907, Sir George Gibb, managing director of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), appointed Stanley as its general manager.[7] The UERL was the holding company of four underground railways in central London.[8] Three of these (the Metropolitan District Railway, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway and the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway) were already in operation and the fourth (the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway) was about to open.[9] The UERL had been established by American financier Charles Yerkes and much of the finance and equipment had been brought from the United States, so Stanley's experience of managing urban transit systems in that country made him an ideal candidate for the position. The cost of constructing three new lines in just a few years had put the company in a precarious monetary position and income was not sufficient to pay the interest on its loans.[10] Stanley's responsibility was to restore the finances.

The first coordinated Underground map, 1908

Only recently promoted to general manager of the New Jersey system, Stanley had been reluctant to take the position in London and took it for one year only, provided he would be free to return to America at the end of the year. He told the company's senior managers that the company was almost bankrupt and got resignation letters from each of them post-dated by six months.[11][12] Through better integration of the separate companies within the group and by improving advertising and public relations, he was quickly able to turn the fortunes of the company around,[1] while the company's chairman, Sir Edgar Speyer, renegotiated the debt repayments.[10] In 1908, Stanley joined the company's board and, in 1910, he became the managing director.[1]

With Commercial Manager Frank Pick, Stanley instigated a plan to increase passenger numbers; developing the "Underground" brand and establishing a joint booking system and coordinated fares throughout all of London's underground railways, including those not controlled by the UERL.[4] In July 1910, Stanley took the integration of the group further, when he persuaded previously reluctant American investors to approve the merger of the three tube railways into a single company.[13][14] Further consolidation came with the UERL's take-over of London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) in 1912 and the Central London Railway and the City and South London Railway on 1 January 1913. Only the Metropolitan Railway (and its subsidiaries the Great Northern & City Railway and the East London Railway) and the Waterloo & City Railway remained outside of the Underground Group's control. The LGOC was the dominate bus operator in the capital and its high profitability (it paid dividends of 18 per cent compared with Underground Group companies' dividends of 1 to 3 per cent) subsidised the rest of the group.[15] Stanley further expanded the group through shareholdings in London United Tramways and Metropolitan Electric Tramways and the take-over of bus builder AEC.[16] The much enlarged group became know as the Combine.[17] On 29 July 1914, Stanley was knighted in recognition of his services to transport.[18]

Stanley also planned extensions of the existing Underground Group's lines into new, undeveloped districts beyond the central area to encourage the development of new suburbs and new commuter traffic. The first of the extensions, the Bakerloo line to Queen's Park and Watford Junction, opened between 1915 and 1917.[9] The other expansion plans were postponed during World War I.[19]

[edit] Government

In 1915, Stanley was given a wartime role as Director-General of Mechanical Transport at the Ministry of Munitions.[20] In 1916, he was selected by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to become President of the Board of Trade. Lloyd George had previously promised this role to Sir Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook), Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne. At that time, a member of parliament taking a cabinet post for the first time had to resign and stand for re-election in a by-election. Aitken had made arrangements to do this before Lloyd George decided to appoint Stanley to the position instead. Aitken, a friend of Stanley, was persuaded to continue with the resignation in exchange for a peerage so that Stanley could take his seat.[21] Stanley became President of the Board of Trade and was made a Privy Counsellor on 13 December 1916.[22] He was elected to parliament unopposed on 23 December 1916 as a Conservative Unionist.[23][1] At 42 years old he was the youngest member of Lloyd George's coalition government.[1]

At the 1918 general election, Stanley was opposed by T. F. Lister, the President of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers, in a challenge over the government's policy on war pensions. With the backing of Beaverbrook, who visited his former constituency to speak on his behalf, Stanley won the election.[24]

Stanley's achievements in office were mixed. He established various specialist departments to manage output in numerous industries and reorganised the structure of the Board.[16] However, despite previous successes with unions, his negotiations were ineffective. Writing to Leader of the House of Commons and former Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law in January 1919, Lloyd George described Stanley as having "all the glibness of Runciman and that is apt to take in innocent persons like you and me... Stanley, to put it quite bluntly, is a funk, and there is no room for funks in the modern world."[25] Stanley left the Board of Trade and the government in May 1919 and returned to the UERL.

[edit] Return to the Underground

Back at the Underground Group, Stanley returned to his role as managing director and also became its chairman, replacing Lord George Hamilton.[26] In the 1920 New Year Honours,[27] he was created Baron Ashfield, of Southwell in the County of Nottingham,[28] ending his term as an MP. Stanley and Pick reactivated their expansion plans and one of the most significant periods in the organisation's history began, subsequently considered to be its heyday and sometimes called its "Golden Age".[29][30]

A smartly dressed middle aged gentleman in top hat, velvet-trimmed coat and stripped trousers with spats and rolled umbrella stands next to the open door of the driver's cab of an an underground railway railway in a station tunnel. A young woman (his daughter) in a long coat a cloche hat stands in the cab door.
Lord Ashfield and his daughter Marion at the reopening of the City and South London Railway, 1 December 1924

The Central London Railway was extended to Ealing Broadway in 1920, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway was extended to Hendon in 1923 and to Edgware in 1924. The City and South London Railway was reconstructed with larger diameter tunnels to take modern trains between 1922 and 1924 and extended to Morden in 1926.[9] In addition, a programme of modernising many of the Underground's busiest central London stations was started; providing them with escalators to replace lifts.[31] New rolling stock was gradually introduced with automatic sliding doors along the length of the carriage instead of manual end gates.[32] By the middle of the 1920s, the organisation had expanded to such an extent that a large, new headquarters building was constructed at 55 Broadway over St. James's Park station.[33]

Starting in the early 1920s, competition from numerous small bus companies, nick-named "pirates" because they operated irregular routes and plundered the LGOC's passengers, eroded the profitability of the Combine's bus operations and had a negative impact on the profitability of the whole group.[34] Ashfield lobbied the government for regulation of transport services in the London area. Starting in 1923, a series of legislative initiatives were made in this direction, with Ashfield and Labour London County Councillor (later MP and Minister of Transport) Herbert Morrison, at the forefront of debates as to the level of regulation and public control under which transport services should be brought. Ashfield aimed for regulation that would give the UERL group protection from competition and allow it to take substantive control of the LCC's tram system; Morrison preferred full public ownership.[35] After seven years of false starts, a bill was announced at the end of 1930 for the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB), a public corporation that would take control of the UERL, the Metropolitan Railway and all bus and tram operators within an area designated as the London Passenger Transport Area.[36] As Stanley had done with shareholders in 1910 over the consolidation of the three UERL controlled tube lines, he used his persuasiveness to obtain their agreements to the government buy-out of their stock.[37]

"I have read this bill carefully, and I beg you to accept that I known of what I am talking about. You cannot conceive I would be guilty of such folly as to suggest to you in a matter in which my whole life has been wrapped, that you should transfer your interests to a board subject to political interference, that could play ducks and drakes with your investments. Acts of Parliament are not treated like scraps of paper. They are scrupulously observed by all parties. I have promised the Minster my support. You may fail to support me, but in that event you will have to find somebody else to manage your undertaking. I have pledged my word and I am not going back on it."[38]

The Board was a compromise – public ownership but not full nationalisation – and came into existence on 1 July 1933.[39] He served as the organisation's chairman from its establishment in 1933 on an annual salary of £12,500 (approximately £660 thousand today),[40][41] with Pick as Chief Executive.

The opening of extensions of the Piccadilly line to Uxbridge, Hounslow and Cockfosters followed in 1933.[9] In 1935, the availability of government-backed loans to stimulate the flagging economy allowed Stanley and Pick to promote system-wide improvements under the New Works Programme for 1935–1940, including the transfer of Stanmore Metropolitan line services to the Bakerloo line in 1939, the Northern line's Northern Heights project and extension of the Central line to Ongar and Denham.[42] Much of the works were interrupted by the Second World War.

Following a reorganisation of public transportation by the Labour government of Clement Attlee, the LPTB was scheduled to be nationalised along with the majority of British railway, bus, road haulage and waterway concerns from 1 January 1948. In advance of this, Ashfield resigned from the LPTB at the end of October 1947 and joined the board of the new British Transport Commission which was to operate all of the nationalised public transport systems. At nationalisation, the LPTB was to be abolished and replaced by the London Transport Executive. Lord Latham, a member of the LPTB and the incoming chairman of the new organisation, acted as temporary chairman for the last two months of the LPTB's existence.[43]

[edit] Other activities

In addition to his management of London Underground and brief political career, Stanley held many directorships in transport undertakings and industry. He was a director of the Mexican Railway Company and two railway companies in Cuba and a member of the 1931 Royal Commission on Railways and Transportation in Canada.[1][44] He was one of two government directors of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, its chairman from 1924 and was involved it the creation of Imperial Chemical Industries in 1926, of which he was subsequently a non-executive director. Stanley was a director of the Midland Bank, Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries and chairman of Albany Ward Theatres, Associated Provincial Picture Houses, and Provincial Cinematograph Theatres.[1]

During World War I, he was Colonel of the Territorial Force Engineer and Railway Staff Corps and was Honorary Colonel of the Royal Artillery's 84th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment during World War II.[44]

[edit] Legacy

Stanley died on 4 November 1948 at 31 Queen's Gate, Kensington.[1] During his near forty-year tenure as managing director and chairman of the Underground Group and the LTPB, Stanley oversaw the transformation of a collection of unconnected, competing railway, bus and tram companies, some in severe financial difficulties, into a coherent and well managed transport organisation, internationally respected for its technical expertise and design style. Transport historian Christian Wolmar considers that "it is almost impossible to exaggerate the high regard in which LT was held during its all to brief heyday, attracting official visitors from around the world eager to learn the lessons of its success and apply them in their own countries." "It represented the apogee of a type of confident public administration... with a reputation that any state organisation today would envy... only made possible by the brilliance of its two famous leaders, Ashfield and Pick."[45]

A memorial to Stanley was erected at 55 Broadway in 1950 and a blue plaque was placed at his home, 43 South Street, Mayfair in 1984[46] A large office building at London Underground's Lillie Bridge Depot is named Ashfield House in his honour. It stands to the south of the District line tracks a short distance to the east of West Kensington station and is also visible from West Cromwell Road (A4).

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barker 2004.
  2. ^ Bridges & Tiltman 1928, p. 14.
  3. ^ a b Bridges & Tiltman 1928, p. 17.
  4. ^ a b Wolmar 2005, p. 199.
  5. ^ "The Spanish American War Centennial Website, The Crew of the USS Yosemite". http://www.spanamwar.com/yosemitecrew.htm. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  6. ^ "Sir Albert Henry Stanley, 1st and last Baron Ashfield". thePeerage.com. http://thepeerage.com/p7739.htm#i77386. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  7. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 196.
  8. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 169.
  9. ^ a b c d Rose 1999.
  10. ^ a b Wolmar 2005, p. 197.
  11. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 200.
  12. ^ Bridges & Tiltman 1928, p. 18.
  13. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 198.
  14. ^ Day & Reed 2008, p. 79.
  15. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 204.
  16. ^ a b "Obituary - Lord Ashfield, Reorganizer of London Transport". The Times (51221): p. 7. 5 November 1948. http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/128/652/107127681w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS119752549&dyn=3!xrn_2_0_CS119752549&hst_1?. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  17. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 193.
  18. ^ London Gazette: no. 28854, p. 593, 31 July 1914. Retrieved on 9 April 2010.
  19. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 207.
  20. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 325.
  21. ^ Blake 1955, pp. 346–347.
  22. ^ London Gazette: no. 29865, p. 12225, 15 December 1916. Retrieved on 9 April 2010.
  23. ^ "The New Ministers - Sir A Stanley and Mr Fisher Returned". The Times (41359): p. 3. 26 December 1916. http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/78/867/103637669w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS52103066&dyn=3!. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  24. ^ Wootton 1963, pp. 204–205.
  25. ^ Lloyd George letter to Bonar Law, 29 January 1919 – quoted in Morgan 1979, p. 51.
  26. ^ "Sir A. Stanley On Railway Services". The Times (42114): 12. 31 May 1919. http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/984/131/69299049w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS202575039&dyn=54!xrn_64_0_CS202575039&hst_1?sw_aep=kccl. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  27. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 31712, p. 1, 1919-12-30. Retrieved on 9 April 2010.
  28. ^ London Gazette: no. 31730, p. 559, 13 January 1920.
  29. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 270, 291.
  30. ^ "Designing Modern Britain". Design Museum. http://designmuseum.org/design/london-transport. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  31. ^ Day & Reed 2008, p. 93.
  32. ^ Day & Reed 2008, pp. 104–107.
  33. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 269.
  34. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 259.
  35. ^ Wolmar 2005, pp. 259–262.
  36. ^ London Gazette: no. 33668, pp. 7905–7907, 9 December 1930. Retrieved on 9 April 2010.
  37. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 264.
  38. ^ "London Underground Agrees to Traffic Board Scheme". Electric Railway Journal (McGraw-Hill) 75 (6): p. 332. June 1931. http://www.archive.org/stream/electricrailwayj752mcgrrich#page/332/mode/2up. Retrieved 15 April 2010. 
  39. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 266.
  40. ^ "London Passenger Transport Board - answers". Hansard 278. 22 May 1933. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1933/may/22/london-passenger-transport-board. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  41. ^ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Measuring Worth: UK CPI.
  42. ^ Day & Reed 2008, p. 118.
  43. ^ "L.P.T,B. Chairmanship". The Times (50908): 4. 3 November 1947. http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/381/682/71932856w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS68240739&dyn=35!xrn_92_0_CS68240739&hst_1?sw_aep=kccl. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  44. ^ a b "Ashfield". Who Was Who. A & C Black/Oxford University Press. 2007. http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U222017?. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 
  45. ^ Wolmar 2005, p. 255.
  46. ^ "Search Blue Plaques". English Heritage. http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.001002006005/chooseLetter/A. Retrieved 9 April 2010. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Walter Runciman		 President of the Board of Trade
1916 – 1919		 Succeeded by
Sir Auckland Geddes
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Sir Max Aitken, Bt		 Member of Parliament for Ashton under Lyne
1916 – 1920		 Succeeded by
Walter de Frece
Business positions
Preceded by
Lord George Hamilton		 Chairman,
Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited
1919-1933		 Succeeded by
Abolished
Preceded by
New Position		 Chairman,
London Passenger Transport Board
1933-1947		 Succeeded by
Lord Latham
(Pro Tempore)
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Ashfield
1920 – 1948		 Extinct
v • d • e
Presidents of the Board of Trade of the United Kingdom
First Lord of Trade
1672-1782
Her Majesty's Government Coat of Arms.svg
President of the Committee on Trade
and Foreign Plantations
1784–1786
President of the Board of Trade
1786-1963
Liverpool · Montrose · Auckland · Bathurst · Clancarty · Robinson · Huskisson · Grant · Vesey-Fitzgerald · Herries · Auckland · Thomson · Baring · Thomson · Labouchere · Ripon · Gladstone · Dalhousie · Clarendon · Labouchere · Henley · Cardwell · Stanley · Henley · Dnoughmore · Gibson · Northcote · Richmond · Bright · Parkinson-Fortescue · Adderley · Sandon · Chamberlain · Richmond · Stanhope · Mundella · Stanley · Hicks Beach · Mundella · Bryce · Ritchie · Balfour · Salisbury · Lloyd George · Churchill · Buxton · Burns · Runciman · Stanley · Geddes · Horne · Baldwin · Cunliffe-Lister · Graham · Cunliffe-Lister · Runciman · Stanley · Duncan · Lyttelton · Duncan · Llewellin · Dalton · Lyttelton · Cripps · Wilson · Shawcross · Thorneycroft · Eccles · Maulding · Erroll
Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional
Development, and President of the Board of Trade
1963–1964
President of the Board of Trade
1964–1970
Jay · Crosland · Mason · Noble
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry,
and President of the Board of Trade
1970–1974
Secretary of State for Industry
1974–1983
Benn · Varley · Joseph · Jenkin
Secretary of State for Trade,
and President of the Board of Trade
1974–1983
Shore · Dell · Smith · Nott · Biffen · Cockfield
Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry, and President of the Board of Trade
1983–2007
Parkinson · Tebbit · Brittan · Channon · Young · Ridley · Lilley · Heseltine · Lang · Beckett · Ridley · Mandelson · Byers · Hewitt · Johnson · Darling
Secretary of State for Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform,
and President of the Board of Trade
2007–2009
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and
Skills, and President of the Board of Trade
2009-Pres.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Stanley,_1st_Baron_Ashfield"
Languages