William Pilkington, Baron Pilkington

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William Henry "Harry" Pilkington, Baron Pilkington DL ( April 19, 1905 , † December 22, 1983 ) was a British entrepreneur who became a member of the House of Lords in 1968 as a Life Peer under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Pilkington came from a family that founded the Pilkington glass manufacturing and processing company in 1826 , which was privately owned until 1970. As a member of the fourth generation of the founding family, Harry Pilkington became a member of the company's executive board in 1934, before becoming CEO of the company in 1949, a position he held until his resignation in 1973. During this time the company's assets grew from £ 12.5 million in 1949 to £ 206 million in 1973 due to success in float glass production in the 1960s and the establishment of new business and manufacturing areas.

Between 1960 and 1962 he was chairman of the Pilkington Committee, named after him and appointed by the government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan , to examine the quality of the radio and television programming of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and commercial independent television (ITV). While the BBC's program was rated positively in the resulting Pilkington Report, there was criticism of the ITV's program.In 1966 he became Chancellor of the newly founded Loughborough University of Technology and held this position until he was replaced by Arnold Alexander Hall in 1980.

Pilkington became through a letters patent from January 18, 1968 as a life peer with the title Baron Pilkington , of St Helens in the County Palatine of Lancaster, a member of the House of Lords, to which he belonged until his death.

After his resignation, Alastair Pilkington became the new CEO of Pilkington Group Limited in 1973.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ THE PILKINGTON REPORT ON BROADCASTING (Hansard of July 18, 1962)
  2. ↑ The Pilkington Report ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.birth-of-tv.org
  3. ^ Letter from London . In: The New Yorker, July 14, 1962
personal data
SURNAME Pilkington, William, Baron Pilkington
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pilkington, William Henry, Baron Pilkington (full name); Harry Pilkington (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1905
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1983