Sir John Norman Toothill

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(11 November 1908 – 5 July 1986) was an

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electrical engineer who rose to be Managing Director of

Ferranti Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...

. He was the author of the ground-breaking Toothill Report of 1961 and was one of the creators of the modern Scottish electronics industry.

Life

He was born on 11 November 1908 at 13 Trafford Road in

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, the only son of John Harold Toothill, an engineer's fitter, and his wife, Helena Gibbins. Educated at Beaminster Grammar School in

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, Toothill left school at the age of seventeen to be

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

d to Tilling Stevens Ltd, a company in

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which made buses. From there he moved on to Hoffman Manufacturing and then to Harris Lebus, a furniture manufacturer.TOOTHILL, Sir John (Norman)
in ''

Who Was Who ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It is a book, and also a CD-ROM and a website, giving information on influential people from around the world. Published annually as a book since 1849, it lists people who influence British life, according to i ...

'' (A. & C. Black), online edition by Oxford University Press, December 2012, accessed 18 Feb 2014 (subscription site) In 1935 he was appointed as chief cost accountant to Ferranti, which was then a company making electrical instruments, and in 1942 became manager of its new works in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. He remained as general manager of Ferranti Scotland until 1968, promoting the company's development into

precision engineering Precision engineering is a subdiscipline of electrical engineering, software engineering, electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, and optical engineering concerned with designing machines, fixtures, and other structures that have excepti ...

and playing a large part in the creation of a Scottish electronics industry. He remained a director of Ferranti until 1975 and in the 1970s and 1980s was also a director of R. W. Toothill Limited, Baxters, W. A. Baxter & Sons Limited, Fochabers, Moray. He was chairman of AI Welders of Inverness and of Highland Hydrocarbons from 1979 until his death.'Sir John Toothill' (obituary) in ''The Times'', issue 62504 dated 9 July 1986, p. 18 In 1947 Toothill was chosen as chairman of the Research Committee of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, and later chaired its Finance Committee. In 1956 he became a director of Ferranti. He was appointed to an Inquiry into the Scottish Economy, and in 1961 his Toothill Report on the Scottish Economy was published, recommending new investment in the country's less prosperous areas. In the 1964 New Year Honours he was knighthood, knighted.

Honours

*Order of the British Empire, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1955 *Companion, Institution of Electrical Engineers *Honorary Companion, Royal Aeronautical Society *Knighthood, 1964 *Honorary Doctor of Laws, LLD, University of Aberdeen, 1966 *Honorary Doctor of Science, DSc, Heriot-Watt University, 1968 *Honorary DSc, Cranfield University, Cranfield Institute of Technology, 1970

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toothill, John Norman 1908 births 1986 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English knights People educated at Beaminster Grammar School 20th-century English businesspeople