Sir Alexander (Alec) Balmain Bruce Valentine OStJ MA (22 December 1899 – 1 December 1977), was Chairman of the London Transport Executive from 1959 to 1963 and Chairman of the

London Transport Board The London Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport (except main-line trains) in London, England, and its environs from 1963 to 1969. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public na ...

from 1963 to 1965.

Family

Valentine was born in

Stockport Stockport is a town and borough in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here. Most of the town is within ...

, the son of Mr & Mrs Milward Valentine and grandson of

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

theologian Alexander Balmain Bruce. He married Beryl Barter in 1936 and the couple had three children, one son and two daughters.

Career

Valentine was educated at

Highgate School Highgate School, formally Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, is an English co-educational, fee-charging, independent day school, founded in 1565 in Highgate, London, England. It educates over 1,400 pupils in three sections – Highgate ...

and

Worcester College, Oxford Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms w ...

before working in the gas industry until 1927. In 1928, he moved to the

Underground Group The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an und ...

where he worked as assistant to its managing director Frank Pick. After the Underground Group was absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) in 1933, he remained with Pick (who became the LPTB's vice-chairman) until 1936. Valentine then held a series of senior management positions within the LPTB including Chief Commercial Officer and Operating Manager (Railways). When the LPTB was

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948, Valentine was made a member of the board of the London Transport Executive (LTE), the LPTB's replacement. As part of the board, Valentine argued for the abandonment of Trams in London, seeing them as a major cause of road congestion, which would be relieved by the introduction of buses, with the aesthetic benefit of doing away with overhead wires and the noisy operation of trams. He was also a member of the London Plan Working Party between 1946 and 1948 which led planning for new transport routes in the capital including the Victoria line built in the 1960s and 1970s. He served on the LTE board until 1954 when he moved to the board of the LTE's parent, the British Transport Commission (BTC). In 1959, while remaining a member of the BTC board, he returned to the LTE as its chairman and remained in that position until the LTE was abolished and replaced with the

of which he was also chairman until he retired in 1965. Valentine was a member of the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...

Study Group from 1957 to 1962 and a director of the Channel Tunnel Company from 1956 to 1969. He was a Fellow of the

Chartered Institute of Transport The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) is a professional body representing the transport and logistics industries worldwide. It is a membership-based organisation with over 30,000 members in over 30 countries. This i ...

and served as its president in 1951–1952 and was President of the Design and Industries Association in 1963–1964. He was Colonel commanding the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

from 1963 to 1964. Valentine was granted a knighthood in the Queen's birthday honours list in 1964. Valentine was a keen bird-watcher and walker, and, taking his pen-name from a British wild bird, he wrote articles on country walks as ''Fieldfare'' in the '' Evening News'' during the 1930s. A collection of these was published as ''Tramping Round London'' in 1933.

References

External links

London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
** {{DEFAULTSORT:Valentine, Alexander 1899 births 1977 deaths Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford Engineer and Railway Staff Corps officers Knights Bachelor British Army soldiers People educated at Highgate School People associated with transport in London People from Stockport Military personnel from Manchester 20th-century British Army personnel