Sir Edward Raymond Streat (7 February 1897 – 13 September 1979) was a British administrator associated with the cotton industry.
Streat was born in
Prestwich, Lancashire, the fifth of six children of Edward Streat, a commercial traveller, and Helen Wallis. His father later remarried. Streat was educated at
Manchester Grammar School until 1913, when he left to become an office boy. Within a few months, he defied his father's wishes by enlisting in the
18th Manchester Regiment. Thereafter, he was wounded while on active service in France during the First World War. He attained the rank of Captain before leaving the army in 1919.
After six months working for an insurance business in
Manchester, Streat beat 600 applicants to become assistant secretary to the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
(MCC). He was made secretary soon after, in January 1920, following the death of the incumbent officeholder. Biographer Marguerite Dupre notes that
Raised as a
Wesleyan, like his father, but eventually becoming an
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
, Streat married Doris Davies on 16 March 1921. The couple had three sons. He continued to work for the MCC until he was appointed as chairman of the
Cotton Board in June 1940. Two years earlier, he had been elected to the court of governors of
Manchester University and between 1936 and 1938 he had served as president of the
Manchester Statistical Society.
When Streat left the Cotton Board in 1957, he succeeded
Ernest Simon as chairman of the council of Manchester University, an institution with which he had remained connected since his first election. He had been elected to the council in 1943 and was appointed its treasurer in 1951, thus having a significant role in creating the financial structure between government and university that allowed for the building of the
radio telescope
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...
facility at
Jodrell Bank. The university awarded him with an honorary LL.D in 1963; he had previously been a visiting fellow of
Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1944 and was elected an honorary fellow there in 1959.
Streat died in
Churchill Hospital
The Churchill Hospital is a teaching hospital in Oxford, England. It is managed by the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
History
The original hospital on the site was built in 1940 with the intention of providing medical aid to ...
,
Oxford, on 13 September 1979.
Honours
Streat was appointed a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1930 and a
Knight Bachelor in 1942. He was appointed as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1957.
References
External links
Raymond Streat Papers John Rylands Library, University of Manchester
{{DEFAULTSORT:Streat, Raymond
Businesspeople awarded knighthoods
British textile industry businesspeople
Cotton industry in England
1897 births
1979 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
Manchester Regiment officers
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Knights Bachelor
Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford
People from Prestwich
People associated with the University of Manchester
People educated at Manchester Grammar School
20th-century English businesspeople