OBITUARY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 24 June 1937, Page 7

OBITUARY

SIR ERIC GEDDES FORMER MEMBER OF CABINET [Doited Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] LONDON, 22nd June. The death has occurred of Sir Eric Geddes, chairman of Imperial Airways, Ltd., and a former Cabinet member. Sir Eric Geddes was born in 1875. Educated at the Oxford Military College, and Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, he was intended for the Army. At the age of 17 years, however, he went to America for engineering experience, worked at lumbering in the southern States, and also was four years with an American railway company. He next spent six years on railways in India. Called to England by the North-eastern Railway Company in 1903, he was general manager of its system from 190 G. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he was retained by Lord Kitchener in the War Department to superintend the transport of munitions, and under Mr Lloyd George he was Deputy Director-Gen-eral of Munitions Supply (1915-16). After the Battle of the Somme he went to France to assist in the reorganisation of French railways, remaining there as Director-General of Transport. In 1917 he was transferred to the Admiralty as Controller of Shipping, and in July, 1917, became First Lord ol the Admiralty. He was made a Privy Councillor, Knight Commander of the Bath, and became a member of Parliament for Cambridge Borough. In January, 1919, selected to fill the'new position of Minister of Transport, he joined the Cabinet and became a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath. He resigned office in October, From August, 1921, to March, 1922, he was chairman of the Committee on Public Economies, popularly known as the Geddes Axe. He left Parliament in 1922 and became chairman of the Dunlop Rubb-r Company and of Imperial Airways, Ltd.