Lord Stokes

Published on Tuesday 22 July 2008 21:32

Chief executive of British Leyland

Born: 22 March, 1914, in Plymouth.

Died: 21 July, 2008, in Poole, Dorset, aged 94.

HE ASSUMED the controls of the British motor industry at a time when it was in turmoil and competition from the United States and Europe was fermenting to such a heat that the relatively constricted UK market had little room for manoeuvre. Lord Stokes had the task of rejuvenating British Leyland Motor Holdings (BLMC) and making it compete worldwide. It was probably a hopeless task but Stokes, a man of guile and commercial cunning, was instrumental in saving parts of the business: Jaguar, Land Rover etc. His battles with various governments, senior management and unions did not help in his quest to revitalise an industry that was, and had been for some years, in decline.

The merger in 1975 of the Leyland Motor Corporation and British Motor Holdings created more than 100 disparate companies. These included firms producing cars, trucks and lorries and many engineering supply companies. It was an unwieldy and ill-matched conglomerate that was at an immediate commercial disadvantage to better- organised competitors such as Ford and General Motors. Stokes, with his hands-on and determined management style, tried to pull the company together – and initially there was some success – but the government was soon forced to take over.

The BLMH job was described by the Financial Times in 1975 as "the toughest in Britain" and that proved all too correct.

In 1961 Leyland built a new truck and trailer factory in Bathgate rather than expand its principal plant at Longbridge. The plant employed more than 6,000 workers in its heyday and was hailed as a major example of how government and private industry could work together. For 20 years Bathgate greatly assisted the economy of Scotland – although BLMH never returned a profit on its investment – and Stokes was keen to maintain the plant. But in 1986 it closed, leaving West Lothian with the highest unemployment in the UK.

Donald Gresham Stokes was educated at Blundell's School and the Harris Institute of Technology in Preston. He joined Leyland Motor as an engineering apprentice in 1930 and showed early promise with the marketing division.

During the Second World War Stokes served in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in the Mediterranean and was demobbed as a lieutenant-colonel. He returned immediately to Leyland, where he was to spearhead the company's export drive.

It was a post Stokes filled with consummate authority: his technical knowledge, broad smile and courteous manner made him an excellent salesman and Leyland's foreign sales greatly prospered under his management.

By 1953 he had been promoted to the board and the group had expanded into other branches of the UK motor industry. Leyland bought well known names such as Albion Motors and Scammell Lorries before, in 1961, taking over Standard-Triumph Cars. Stokes had gained a deserved reputation outside the world of business and he was a regular and effective performer on television. He became the articulate spokesman for industry and proved adept at remaining outside the political arena but talked with first-hand knowledge about the problems of business.

When the prime minister, Harold MacMillan, said, "exporting is fun" Stokes commented that he had been "bitten by wild dogs in Ecuador lost in an African jungle and spent half his married life away from home".

Stokes pulled off a major coup – and the subsequent publicity did him no harm either – when he got an order for 620 London buses from Cuba. Stokes overheard a conversation on an aircraft that the Cubans needed new buses and the deal was clinched with an arrangement for Leyland to be paid out of bus fares. Such deals were typical of the buccaneering Stokes, who had a flair for publicity and PR.

In 1967 Stokes became chairman and chief executive of Leyland, where annual turnover had risen to 300 million. It was the same year cracks started to appear in Leyland's principal UK rival, British Motor Corporation. Harold Wilson's government encouraged the two companies to merge and create a viable opposition to foreign competition. That now included the Japanese manufacturers, who were starting to make severe inroads into the UK market. The new company, BLMH, was the UK's largest exporter and sold more than half the cars in the country.

Stokes tried to revitalise the car division, which had been suffering for more than a decade. The Mini had been a huge seller and brought the company much prestige but many considered it had been sold far too cheaply and BMC had taken too long to recover the set-up costs. Stokes installed younger management in the car division and there were initial signs of success. Sales rose to more than 1 billion a year but the downturn in the home economy in the early 1970s left BLMH powerless. Worse, it then introduced two unsatisfactory new models – the Morris Marina and the Allegro – which proved slow sellers.

Industrial relations also became a major problem for the company and Stokes seemed to be more involved with internal bargaining than expanding the company's fortunes. This led to a reputation for unreliability and BLMH typified the sad state of UK business. The 1973 oil crisis, the three-day week and high inflation left the company in a desperate state. In 1975 the Wilson government asked Sir Don Ryder to report on the company's future and he recommended the company be drastically restructured, with the government becoming the largest shareholder in a new company, British Leyland Limited.

The new management structure left little place for such an ebullient individual as Stokes, who quietly stepped down. He continued as president of BL for four years and a consultant until 1981, but in 1977 the no-nonsense management of Sir Michael Edwards totally reorganised the company.

Stokes accepted various directorships, but he was content to spend his time sailing off the south coast.

In 1939 he had married Laura Lamb, who died in 1995. He is survived by a son of that marriage and his second wife, whom he married in 2000, Patricia Pascall.

ALASDAIR STEVEN