Jock Campbell, Baron Campbell of Eskan
Encyclopedia
John "Jock" Middleton Campbell, Baron Campbell of Eskan (8 August 1912 – 26 December 1994) was the Chairman of Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co (Later Booker-McConnell) in British Guiana
(now Guyana
) between 1952 and 1967. He was knighted in 1957 and was created a life peer
on the 14 January 1966, taking the title Baron Campbell of Eskan, of Camis Eskan in the County of Dumbarton. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Sugar Exporters Association (1950-1984). He was additionally notable as chairman of Booker McConnell, Chairman of the New Statesman and Nation
and the first chairman of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation
.
, to be safe from the bombs of the German Zeppelins. After the war Jock returned to the family home in Kent. He later attended Eton and Oxford.
Among the principal beneficiaries of this booming trade were John Campbell (Senior) and Company, which supplied merchandise to the slave plantations along the coast of Guiana, then in Dutch hands. It was in this role of supplier that the company first began to acquire plantations along the Essequibo Coast of Guiana, from planters facing bankruptcy.
Jock Campbell later remarked often that, in acquiring estates through foreclosure, his ancestors became de facto slave-owners. Campbell himself abhorred slavery, and it was in fact the urge to make good the misdeeds of his own family that was the catalyst for his own reformist ideals.
On 5 May 1971, in the House of Lords, Campbell dissociated himself from his ancestors, arguing that "maximising profits cannot and should not be the sole purpose, or even the primary purpose, of business."
By the 20th Century, the company of Curtis, Campbell and Co had its established place in the British Guiana plantocracy; it owned Ogle Plantation in Demerara and Albion Estate, up the Atlantic coast in the Corentyne district, and a wharf in Georgetown. When Jock’s great-grandfather, Colin Campbell of Colgrain, died in 1919 he left £1 million, a fortune at the time. When his grandfather, William Middleton Campbell, died, he left £1.5 million – all of it from the cane fields of British Guiana.
After several months on the wharf he went to continue his apprenticeship at Albion Estate in the Essequibo District. One anecdote of this time is characteristic of the shock he suffered on seeing the appalling conditions of the workers:
When shown around the family plantation at Albion, in the Corentyne district of British Guiana, Jock was appalled by the living conditions of the coolies, the East Indian cane cutters. The East Indians had been brought into the country after the liberation of the slaves, and were housed in the same tiny, dark, vermin-infested, earth-floored “logies”. Next to the logies was a more pretentious building, clean, painted, smart looking, a mansion in comparison to the shacks. “Jock enquired who lived in the hovels: “Our coolies,” replied Bee (the estate manager). He then asked of the residents of the trimmed building. Bee said, “Oh! We keep our mules there.” A naïve 22 year old Jock asked flippantly: “Why don’t you move your coolies to the mules’ palace and put your mules in the hovels?” A stunned Bee exclaimed cryptically: “Mules cost money, sir!”
As the first step of plan, Jock urged his father and uncle to merge the family company the giant company Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co. The take-over took place in 1934, after which Jock quickly rose to Chairman.
Bookers, as it was then known, at the time was a state within a state, owning almost all the colony’s sugar plantations and dominating the economic life of the country so much it was called “Booker’s Guiana”. As head of this state, Jock went about implementing his reforms.
Jock was partly driven by the guilt of his family background, but also by the conviction that every business has a responsibility towards its workers; and that profit alone should not be the guiding principle of society. His reforms continued on a grander scale.
According to Ian McDonald, one of his employees: “All Jock’s abundant energy was converted to a faith that Booker had to mean something in a new deal for the West Indies… Demerara was his Damascus.”
In effect, Jock Campbell became a socialist-capitalist. He initiated a process in which Bookers was completely reorganised and recreated.
The sugar industry was transformed from a run-down, unprofitable, inhuman, paternalistic and plantocratic expatriate family concern into a rehabilitated, forward-looking, productive and dynamic enterprise. Guianese were placed in the highest positions; if they did not have the skills for these positions, they were sent away for training.
Sugar production grew from 170,000 tons to 350,000 tons. Estates were consolidated and factories modernised. Drainage and irrigation facilities and the whole infrastructure of field works were completely revamped. Agricultural practices and applications were overhauled in line with current world-class technology. The first sugar bulk-loading terminal in the Caribbean was established to replace the drudgery of loading sugar in bags.
The people side of the industry was revolutionised: remuneration vastly increased, the old logies eliminated and 15,000 new houses in 75 housing areas built with roads and water supplied. Medical services were upgraded to cater for all sugar workers and their families and the scourge of malaria was eradicated, Community Centres were established on all estates and welfare, sporting and library activities expanded. Training and education were immensely improved; scholarship programs initiated, and all along Guianisation moved forward until the time came when the industry was being run almost entirely by Guianese. It was an era of tremendous growth and change.
As a member of the Fabian Society
, Jock Campbell's key message was quite simple:
. Jagan, himself the son of Indian indentured servants, quickly gained the confidence of the sugar workers, and in Guyana’s first general elections in 1953 became Prime Minister.
Jock was willing to work with Jagan, as both had the same aims, but Jagan made it clear that the sugar industry would be nationalised after independence. Jagan was removed from power by the British due to his Marxist leanings;
in his place came Forbes Burnham
.
Jock was an old friend and golfing partner of Ian Fleming
, author of the James Bond
spy novels, who had recently been diagnosed as terminally ill with less than a year to live. During a game of golf Fleming turned to Jock for advice on securing his estate for his family from heavy taxation. Jock initially advised Fleming to turn to accountants and merchant bankers, but then had a new idea: Bookers could act as bankers for Fleming, beneficially for both parties.
As a result, Bookers acquired a 51% share in the profits of Glidmore Productions, the company handling the profits from worldwide royalties on Fleming's books, and the associated merchandising rights - but not the film rights.
Thus was born the Bookers Author Division, with the injunction:
Bookers later acquired the copyrights of other well-known authors, including novelists Agatha Christie
, Dennis Wheatley
, Georgette Heyer
and the playwrights Robert Bolt
and Harold Pinter
. It was the copyrights of Agatha Christie which, over time, contributed most to the profit of the Authors Division.
The Booker Prize was launched in 1969, after the publishers Jonathan Cape suggested that Bookers might sponsor a major fiction prize. A new sponsor for the prize was announced in April 2002, the Man Group, after which it became known as the Man Booker Prize
.
.
Development Corporation from 1967. The large, central park initially called City Park, was renamed Campbell Park
in his honour. There is a memorial stone by the fountain in his honour which reads simply "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice". ("If you seek a monument, look about you", referring to the urban landscape created by his team.
In June 1973 he was awarded an honorary degree
from the Open University
as Doctor of the University.
He stepped down from the post of chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation in 1983 and was replaced by Sir Henry Chilver, who remained in post until Milton Keynes Development Corporation was wound up on the 1st April 1992.
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
(now Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
) between 1952 and 1967. He was knighted in 1957 and was created a life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
on the 14 January 1966, taking the title Baron Campbell of Eskan, of Camis Eskan in the County of Dumbarton. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Sugar Exporters Association (1950-1984). He was additionally notable as chairman of Booker McConnell, Chairman of the New Statesman and Nation
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
and the first chairman of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation
Milton Keynes Development Corporation
Milton Keynes Development Corporation was established on 23 January 1967 to provide the vision and execution of a "new city", Milton Keynes, that would be the modern interpretation of the Garden city movement concepts first expressed by Ebenezer Howard 60 years earlier...
.
Childhood and Youth
Jock’s paternal grandfather, William Middleton, was Governor of the Bank of England between 1907 and 1909, a man of great prestige. His mother Mary was of aristocratic Irish stock. Jock was born on 8 August 1912 and at the age of three was sent to the opulent family seat of his mother’s family, Glenstal Castle in southern IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, to be safe from the bombs of the German Zeppelins. After the war Jock returned to the family home in Kent. He later attended Eton and Oxford.
Family background: the slave trade
It was John Campbell (Senior), Jock’s great-great-grandfather, ship owner and merchant of Glasgow, who, towards the end of the 18th Century, first established the fortunes of the Campbell family in the West Indies, through the slave trade. At the time, Glasgow trading houses, long experienced in servicing the needs of North American slave plantations, were ready to capitalise on new opportunities in the sugar industry arising on the West Indies. By the 1780s they were supplying the two most important British exports to the West Indies, herring and coarse linen goods.Among the principal beneficiaries of this booming trade were John Campbell (Senior) and Company, which supplied merchandise to the slave plantations along the coast of Guiana, then in Dutch hands. It was in this role of supplier that the company first began to acquire plantations along the Essequibo Coast of Guiana, from planters facing bankruptcy.
Jock Campbell later remarked often that, in acquiring estates through foreclosure, his ancestors became de facto slave-owners. Campbell himself abhorred slavery, and it was in fact the urge to make good the misdeeds of his own family that was the catalyst for his own reformist ideals.
On 5 May 1971, in the House of Lords, Campbell dissociated himself from his ancestors, arguing that "maximising profits cannot and should not be the sole purpose, or even the primary purpose, of business."
By the 20th Century, the company of Curtis, Campbell and Co had its established place in the British Guiana plantocracy; it owned Ogle Plantation in Demerara and Albion Estate, up the Atlantic coast in the Corentyne district, and a wharf in Georgetown. When Jock’s great-grandfather, Colin Campbell of Colgrain, died in 1919 he left £1 million, a fortune at the time. When his grandfather, William Middleton Campbell, died, he left £1.5 million – all of it from the cane fields of British Guiana.
Arriving in British Guiana
Jock went to British Guiana for the first time to take charge of the family estates, arriving in 1934. The Campbells owned Las Penitence Wharf on the Demerara River, Georgetown, where they were agents for the Harrison line of shipping. They also owned Ogle Estate, up the East Coast from Demerara, and Albion, further Eastward in the Berbice district. In his first few months in the colony Jock worked at the family’s wharf, assessing the claims made by merchants whose goods had been broached, broken or stolen.After several months on the wharf he went to continue his apprenticeship at Albion Estate in the Essequibo District. One anecdote of this time is characteristic of the shock he suffered on seeing the appalling conditions of the workers:
When shown around the family plantation at Albion, in the Corentyne district of British Guiana, Jock was appalled by the living conditions of the coolies, the East Indian cane cutters. The East Indians had been brought into the country after the liberation of the slaves, and were housed in the same tiny, dark, vermin-infested, earth-floored “logies”. Next to the logies was a more pretentious building, clean, painted, smart looking, a mansion in comparison to the shacks. “Jock enquired who lived in the hovels: “Our coolies,” replied Bee (the estate manager). He then asked of the residents of the trimmed building. Bee said, “Oh! We keep our mules there.” A naïve 22 year old Jock asked flippantly: “Why don’t you move your coolies to the mules’ palace and put your mules in the hovels?” A stunned Bee exclaimed cryptically: “Mules cost money, sir!”
Reform of the sugar estates
As the son of the estate owner Jock had enormous influence in spite of his youth and soon embarked on a mission of reform, and this became his life work.As the first step of plan, Jock urged his father and uncle to merge the family company the giant company Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co. The take-over took place in 1934, after which Jock quickly rose to Chairman.
Bookers, as it was then known, at the time was a state within a state, owning almost all the colony’s sugar plantations and dominating the economic life of the country so much it was called “Booker’s Guiana”. As head of this state, Jock went about implementing his reforms.
Jock was partly driven by the guilt of his family background, but also by the conviction that every business has a responsibility towards its workers; and that profit alone should not be the guiding principle of society. His reforms continued on a grander scale.
According to Ian McDonald, one of his employees: “All Jock’s abundant energy was converted to a faith that Booker had to mean something in a new deal for the West Indies… Demerara was his Damascus.”
I believe that there should be values other than money in a civilised society.
I believe that truth, beauty and goodness have a place. Moreover, I believe that if businessmen put money, profit, greed and acquisition among the highest virtues, they cannot be surprised if, for instance, nurses, teachers and ambulance men are inclined to do the same.
In effect, Jock Campbell became a socialist-capitalist. He initiated a process in which Bookers was completely reorganised and recreated.
The sugar industry was transformed from a run-down, unprofitable, inhuman, paternalistic and plantocratic expatriate family concern into a rehabilitated, forward-looking, productive and dynamic enterprise. Guianese were placed in the highest positions; if they did not have the skills for these positions, they were sent away for training.
Sugar production grew from 170,000 tons to 350,000 tons. Estates were consolidated and factories modernised. Drainage and irrigation facilities and the whole infrastructure of field works were completely revamped. Agricultural practices and applications were overhauled in line with current world-class technology. The first sugar bulk-loading terminal in the Caribbean was established to replace the drudgery of loading sugar in bags.
The people side of the industry was revolutionised: remuneration vastly increased, the old logies eliminated and 15,000 new houses in 75 housing areas built with roads and water supplied. Medical services were upgraded to cater for all sugar workers and their families and the scourge of malaria was eradicated, Community Centres were established on all estates and welfare, sporting and library activities expanded. Training and education were immensely improved; scholarship programs initiated, and all along Guianisation moved forward until the time came when the industry was being run almost entirely by Guianese. It was an era of tremendous growth and change.
As a member of the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
, Jock Campbell's key message was quite simple:
Employees were greatly inspired by him. Said one:
People are more important than ships, shops and sugar estates.
We tried to act in the belief that business could not possibly just be about making money if only because that would be soul-destroyingly boring. Business had to be about making the lives of people better and more fulfilled. People in any case always came first however you considered what you were trying to do in business. You had a fourfold responsibility to people: to shareholders, to employees, to customers, to the community of people in which business operated and found its meaning. Creating profit was vital but not just for its own sake but for good, everyday, ordinarily human, immediately flesh and blood, life-enhancing purposes.
British Guiana/Guyana
In British Guiana, Jock met his foil in Cheddi JaganCheddi Jagan
Cheddi Berret Jagan was a Guyanese politician who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964, prior to independence. He later served as President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997.- Biography :The son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers, Jagan...
. Jagan, himself the son of Indian indentured servants, quickly gained the confidence of the sugar workers, and in Guyana’s first general elections in 1953 became Prime Minister.
Jock was willing to work with Jagan, as both had the same aims, but Jagan made it clear that the sugar industry would be nationalised after independence. Jagan was removed from power by the British due to his Marxist leanings;
in his place came Forbes Burnham
Forbes Burnham
Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was the leader of Guyana from 1964 until his death, first as Premier from 1964 to 1966, then as the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1980 and finally as President from 1980 to 1985....
.
The Booker Prize
It is after leaving Guyana that Jock, who had always loved great literature, became instrumental in the initiation of a British Literature prize.Jock was an old friend and golfing partner of Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
, author of the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
spy novels, who had recently been diagnosed as terminally ill with less than a year to live. During a game of golf Fleming turned to Jock for advice on securing his estate for his family from heavy taxation. Jock initially advised Fleming to turn to accountants and merchant bankers, but then had a new idea: Bookers could act as bankers for Fleming, beneficially for both parties.
As a result, Bookers acquired a 51% share in the profits of Glidmore Productions, the company handling the profits from worldwide royalties on Fleming's books, and the associated merchandising rights - but not the film rights.
Thus was born the Bookers Author Division, with the injunction:
It should make money, not to mention being entertaining, and there could be advertising interest in it for some of our companies.
Bookers later acquired the copyrights of other well-known authors, including novelists Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
, Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yates Wheatley was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:...
, Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer was a British historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth. In 1925 Heyer married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer...
and the playwrights Robert Bolt
Robert Bolt
Robert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.-Career:He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended the University of Manchester, and, after war service, the University of...
and Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
. It was the copyrights of Agatha Christie which, over time, contributed most to the profit of the Authors Division.
The Booker Prize was launched in 1969, after the publishers Jonathan Cape suggested that Bookers might sponsor a major fiction prize. A new sponsor for the prize was announced in April 2002, the Man Group, after which it became known as the Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
.
New Statesman and Nation: The Jock Campbell/New Statesman Prize
Jock was for a time Chairman of the New Statesman and NationNew Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
.
Milton Keynes Development Corporation
Jock was chairman for the Milton KeynesMilton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...
Development Corporation from 1967. The large, central park initially called City Park, was renamed Campbell Park
Campbell Park
Campbell Park is a district in east-central and south-central Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, the central park for Milton Keynes, and a civil parish that includes other districts. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 13,364...
in his honour. There is a memorial stone by the fountain in his honour which reads simply "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice". ("If you seek a monument, look about you", referring to the urban landscape created by his team.
In June 1973 he was awarded an honorary degree
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
as Doctor of the University.
He stepped down from the post of chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation in 1983 and was replaced by Sir Henry Chilver, who remained in post until Milton Keynes Development Corporation was wound up on the 1st April 1992.
Further reading
- Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz (2004) Yali's Question: Sugar, Culture and History ISBN 0-226-21745-0 (cloth), ISBN 0-226-21746-9 (pb). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 60637
- Slinn, J. and Tanburn, J. (2003) The Booker Story Andover: Jarrold Publishing, ISBN 0-7117-3439-9.
- Clem Seecharan Jock Campbell: the Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers
- Obituary: Peter Parker OBITUARIES : Lord Campbell of Eskan London: The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
4 Jan 1995
Writings
- Jock Campbell and others, Britain, the EEC and the Third World :Praeger Publishers 1972