John Wall, Baron Wall

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John Edward Wall, Baron Wall Kt OBE ( February 15, 1913 - December 29, 1980 ) was a British manager who became a member of the House of Lords in 1976 as a life peer under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Wall worked as an economic manager and was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services . On January 1, 1968, he was beaten to the Knight Bachelor and then carried the suffix "Sir".

After the two large computer manufacturers English Electric and International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) merged to form International Computers Limited (ICL) in 1968 , Wall became chairman of the company's board of directors.

In the period that followed, it continued to produce models from the previous companies and developed a new series of models for the 1970s. However, these projects led to high research and development costs , which worsened ICL's financial situation during the recession, particularly in the years 1970 to 1971.

Therefore, in the course of the negotiations for the UK's accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) , he looked in vain for cooperation with companies such as Philips and Siemens and justified this as follows: “In order to be able to survive against the Americans, we need a European information industry - for economic reasons and political reasons. But I very much doubt whether the EEC will be of much use to us. ”At that time, the US competitor IBM was already responding by introducing new machines and starting a price war to which ICL was unable to react due to its financial situation.

The ailing company, which had an unofficial preferential status as a supplier in the public sector, tried to secure further government contracts. A contract award test that was started then failed, however, after the Conservative Party had won the general election on June 18, 1970 and provided Edward Heath as the new Prime Minister .

Then there were repeated critical comments in the press about mismanagement at ICL, in the course of which Wall was finally dismissed as Chairman of the Board and Arthur Humphreys as Managing Director in 1972 and by Tom Hudson, the previous Managing Director of IBM UK, and Geoff Cross, who was previously responsible for the US computer and electronics company Sperry Corporation were replaced.

After his release from ICL, he was a director of The Exchange Telegraph Co. Ltd. (Extel), a subscription system for stock market and business news , founded in March 1872.

By a letters patent dated February 5, 1976, Wall was raised to the nobility as a life peer with the title Baron Wall , of Coombe in Greater London, under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and was a member of the House of Lords until his death. Its official launch ( House of Lords ) took place on March 17, 1976 with the support of Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton and Jock Campbell, Baron Campbell of Eskan .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 44552, HMSO, London, March 22, 1968, p. 3431 ( PDF , accessed December 31, 2013, English).
  2. ↑ JOINT MARKET / JOINING ENGLAND: Never so fit . In: Der Spiegel from June 29, 1970
  3. ^ How ICL will fare without its Government umbrella (Article in Financial Times of March 2, 1971)
  4. ↑ ICL PLC History
  5. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 46777, HMSO, London, December 30, 1975, p. 1 ( PDF , accessed December 31, 2013, English).
  6. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 46821, HMSO, London, February 10, 1976, p. 2063 ( PDF , accessed December 31, 2013, English).
  7. ^ Entry in Hansard (March 17, 1976)
personal data
SURNAME Wall, John, Baron Wall
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wall, John Edward, Baron Wall (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British manager
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1913
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1980