A BIT OF TOP BRASS…
W.A. (BILL) SHAPLAND.
Shapland, Sir William Arthur (1912 – 1997) Kt 1982; Hon DSc Buckingham 1983; Hon DLitt Leicester 1985; Hon FRCS 1977.
Born: 20 October 1912. Died: 1 October 1997.
Sir William Shapland, an honorary fellow of the College, was born on 20 October 1912, the son of Arthur Frederick Shapland and Alice Maud née Jackson.
Educated at Tollington School, he joined the firm of Allen Charlesworth & Co, chartered accountants. He was given the responsibility of dealing with the accounts of John Blackwood Hodge & Co and Bernard Sunley & Sons, and, later, of advising the chairman, Bernard Sunley, a construction magnate. So valuable was his advice that, in 1946, he was invited to join the group as a non-executive director.
In 1954 he became an executive director, succeeding Sunley as chairman of Blackwood Hodge ten years later.
In 1960 he helped set up the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation, which distributes almost £3 million a year to good causes. Charities and institutions as varied as the Scout movement, Charing Cross Hospital and the Wild Fowl Trust have benefited.
Among his many honours he was a Waynflete fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and honorary fellow of St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
He died on 1 October 1997, leaving his wife Madeleine and two daughters.
[Leicester University Gazette]
A.R. (TONY) BARKER
Tony Barker enjoyed a brilliant hands-on engineering career at a time when innovators such as he could put their ideas into practise.
After leaving college Tony gained a BSc in engineering, and at the age of 20 he was commissioned into the Navy.
He served as an engineering officer aboard HMS Endeavour, a light cruiser of WWl vintage, (she had been laid down in 1918). Her final engagement was off Cherbourg as part of the D Day assault. During this, Endeavour received a direct hit but made it back to port.
On leave, and between ships, Tony married Hazel, and then set sail to join the Pacific Fleet for the assault on Japan. He was among the first ashore, commanding a party in Nagasaki that was charged with surveying the effects of the A bomb explosion.
Demobbed, his first job was with Jack Olding, but two years later he joined Blackwood Hodge. These were exciting times for a young engineer. A programme of power station construction was underway and coal handling techniques were being developed.
Tony took the TS 24 motor scraper and modified it for the CEGB to handle 40 yds. of coal. It was the best coal stockpiling machine ever, and a string of orders followed.
By the 70’s Tony was sales director for the Blackwood Hodge operation in the U.K. and Australia, overseeing the distribution of the highly regarded Terex and Euclid muck shifting machinery.
He became Blackwood Hodge’s M.D. a post he held until retirement from the company in 1981. Later he was invited to become Chairman of Berkley JCB, thus continuing his career long association with construction plant.
Tony’s great love was his family. He and Hazel had three children, they in turn had two, and eventually Tony and Hazel enjoyed the company of three great-grandchildren. Tony died soon after he and his wife celbrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary.
……AND A LITTLE LESS BRASS.
H. (BERT) SAMEK E.E.(TED) FARMER R.A. (BOB) STALLARD
J.P. (PETER) GINSBERG R.J.H.(DICK) GANE
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