Wilfrid Lewis Hewlett
BSc Industry & Trade 1948 (1912 –  2010)

Born in South East London, Wilfrid Hewlett was educated at the Roan School Greenwich and was a scholar at Imperial College taking a first class honours degree in chemistry in 1933.
His early career was in research and technical sales including a two year period in India. In 1938 he joined the Non Ferrous Metals Research Association as a technical officer selling its research services. At the start of the war he was seconded to the Ministry of Supply’s nonferrous metals control organisation, managing the allocation of brass to industry.

After the war he moved to the Iron and Steel Board, set up to manage and nationalise the UK iron and steel industry. During this period he sat on UK government committees monitoring the negotiations to form the European Steel and Coal Community which later gave birth to the EEC and also found time to take an external B. Com. at LSE. The attitude of the UK government certainly went against his inclinations which were towards closer UK economic involvement in Europe. Throughout the 1950s he was involved in the strategic market management of the UK iron and Steel industry after its denationalisation as Head of Market Division serving on international bodies including continuing liaison with the ECSC. In 1962 when the UK applied to join the EEC he moved to Richard Thomas & Baldwins Ltd to manage their response to Europe and, when President de Gaulle spoke his emphatic “non”, he took on a senior role in sales and marketing developing strong relationships with the company’s agents in Spain Australia and USA and visiting China in 1963 as part of a delegation selling tinplate.

On the re-nationalisation of the UK steel industry he moved to the Steel Corporation (later British Steel) as Head of Marketing Services and then into a strategic marketing role in the office of the Board member for commercial policy. One of the assignments he undertook in 1973-74 was advising the Peruvian steel industry on its market strategy. During this time he became closely involved with the UK participation in the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and on reaching retirement took up a position in 1977 as a special technical advisor with the organisation in Vienna.

On final retirement he continued to be closely involved in local politics, the Britain in Europe organisation in Richmond upon Thames and local music societies. He served a term as Secretary of the RCS Association and kept in close touch with both Imperial College and LSE. He travelled widely in Europe and the Middle East developing an interest in the culture of that region and reading the Koran in translation as well as the whole of the Old and New Testaments.

In his last years he moved from Sheen to Amersham to be near his grandchildren and was particularly pleased that his grandson has chosen to study chemistry for his first degree commenting that that talent had obviously “skipped a generation”!

His wife, Connie predeceased him in 1981 but he is survived by his children, Carol and Anthony and his grandchildren Cecily and Robert. He was the last of his four siblings to pass away, both his eldest brother and elder sister became centenarians and the five of them achieved a remarkable total of 466 years between them.

Anthony Hewlett
May 2010