GREAT CHEMICAL COMBINE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 28, 3 January 1931, Page 7

GREAT CHEMICAL COMBINE.

SUCCESSOR TO LORD MELCHETT.

(British Official "Wireless.)

RUGBY, Jan. 1. Sir Harry McGowan, who was yesterday elected chairman and managing director of Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, in succession to the late Lord Mlchett, began life as an office boy in one of Nobel’s explosives factories and earned five shillings a week. Now he is controller of the world’s greatest chemical^combine —a company with au . authorised capital of £95,000,000. The big merger which resulted in the formation of the combine was negotiated by Sir Harry McGowan, as chairman of Nobel’s, and Lord Melcliett, who was then head of Brunner Mend's.

Sir Harry, who was born in Glasgow 56 years ago, is interested directly in fourteen other companies, including the Midland Bank, of which he is a director, the General Motors Corporation of New York, and the British and Overseas Bank and Finance Company of Great Britain and America, Limited. He is almost as well known in American financial quarters as he is in London.