Mr Michael (Mike) Ernest Beasley CBE

From Engineer to Managing Director

MIke Beasley 1943 – 2021

One of the links with Ford and Jaguar was broken on 3 March 2021 when former Managing Director of Jaguar Cars, Michael Ernest Beasley, died.

Mike Beasley was one of the last remaining members of the Jaguar executive committee who was present when Ford bought Jaguar in 1989.  Initially, Ford left Jaguar’s top personnel in situ but within a year this had altered with the replacement by Ford of most of the key people at Jaguar, including John Egan; Beasley was one of the few retained by Ford.  He had already weathered the storms of British Leyland and Jaguar-Rover-Triumph as the Company fought to become independent once again.

John Egan recalled: “Mike was part of the gang that saved the company.  His contribution was immense.”   Egan also remembered that shortly after the arrival of just-in-time inventory systems, when Jaguar production was threatened by a snowstorm that prevented it from getting transmissions from a Borg Warner factory in south Wales, Beasley acted.  He commandeered a small group of lorries and Land Rovers and sent them through the snow down to Wales to get the transmissions.  Reflecting on those days Mike said: “What I hate doing is lying down and saying: ‘Oh no, it can’t be done.’  In my book, that’s not an acceptable answer – to say we can’t get the transmissions so we’ll just have to shut down production. It was not in my nature.”

The Early Days

Michael was born on 18 July 1943 in Slough.  His father, Albert – known as Bert – was a policeman in the Buckinghamshire Constabulary and he moved around Buckinghamshire with his Dad and Mother, Ellen – known as Ciss, during his early childhood.  His sister Yvonne was born, when he was 9 years old and Michael attended the local Church Primary School in Marlow.  The family went on to move to Iver Heath, near the Pinewood Studios – which was very exciting for a youngster.  He also had his first job nearby, as a Saturday bakery delivery boy.

When he was growing up, Michael loved the rock and roll scene of the time and demonstrated his slightly rebellious nature when he once climbed the wires to the top of the suspension bridge in Marlow!  A very daring act for the local policeman’s son!

Nevertheless, he completed his O levels and then completed an HND in Mechanical Engineering, starting his working career with a 5 year apprenticeship at Satchwell Controls.  Michael continued working at Satchwells for a few years, then moved to Ford as a production engineer in 1966.  He married Jenny a year later and his son, Gavin arrived in 1968, followed by Julie two years later.

Career with Jaguar Cars

As his career flourished, the family moved from Maidenhead, to Bracknell and then Ford of Britain asked him to move to take on their Halewood plant.   He did not want to move, so left Ford and joined Jaguar Cars Limited in 1974 (aged 31) as a Staff Director of the Product and Plant Engineering Team, moving the family to Moreton Morrell in Warwickshire.

There is a sequel to this move, when Ford bought Jaguar in 1989 the Halewood plant was included to build the new X400 (X-Type) and Beasley was put in charge!  Bill Hayden who came from Ford as Managing Director of Jaguar commented at the time: “He fled Ford Motor Co. to get away from me and winds up working for the same guy!”  Hayden and Beasley had once worked together at Ford’s Transit van factory at Langley.

Beasley progressed through a number of senior management positions, Manufacturing Director (1978), Board Director (1985), appointed as Executive Director Manufacturing and Engineering (1999).

Egan recalled, “He saw the company through the huge industrial relations strife of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  You had to fight the trade unions to do anything.  He just stuck to his task.  He was a real hardworking, straightforward guy.  There was nothing fancy about Mike.”

While John Egan walked through Castle Bromwich with Beasley, Beasley remarked, “I haven’t seen a single black face in this place.  Have you?”.  He requested an explanation for the lack of ethnic minority and the response was, “well, the unions vet the applicants before our employment office takes them on and, as you can see, they don’t send up very many black people”.  Harry Adey, Industrial Relations Director, pointed out that was against the law.  Beasley added, “we can’t run a plant with a colour bar.  Not only is it illegal, but it is absolutely against everything we have promised our people at Jaguar.  This is going to stop and stop right now, you’d better bring in the shop stewards straight away”.

Once everyone gathered he told them, “Castle Bromwich stands a small chance of survival and that requires Jaguar fixing all its technical problems and then growing the business to the point where it is viable.  But we are not doing any of this if you continue to break the law.  Now here is my offer.  We employ whomever we choose to employ, from tomorrow onwards, or we bring in the police to find out who has been breaking the law, and encourage the police to prosecute them.  That is the offer, but it doesn’t leave you with much choice.  It’s either us or the police…”. 

Jaguar gained proper control of the factory and when production of the Triumph TR7 bodies came to an end, it became a Jaguar-only operation.

By the mid-1980s Jaguar needed to expand the Browns Lane site and Beasley was in charge of the project.  The Allesley & Coundon Wedge Conservation Society (founded in the 1970s to protect  the local area) wanted Jaguar to build an underground tunnel to deal with the traffic, but this was far too costly.  The preferred solution was to build a new perimeter road around the factory and a new car park.   In 1991 the Lord Mayor of Coventry and Beasley opened the Coundon Wedge Drive project which had cost around £4 million, £2 million of which Jaguar had to pay.

To the local community’s relief, the project diverted 95% of the traffic from Browns Lane which meant employee cars were no longer left parked at the kerbside.

Under Ford’s ownership Jaguar improved and Beasley, as Manufacturing Director, proved he could be very good, given the proper resources.  Jaguar quality improved with a healthy infusion of cash and Ford know-how.  Credit must go to Ford who left Jaguar veterans like Beasley in charge.  Beasley’s career continued its upward path, becoming Assistant Managing Director and together with Jonathan Browning who was Jaguar’s Managing Director from 1999 to 2001, set out to implement the ‘6 Sigma’ process with the intention to improve quality of all operations.  In 2001 Beasley succeeded Browning as Managing Director and remained at the helm until his retirement in 2003, aged 60.

Life After Jaguar

Mike Beasley in XJ13

Approaching retirement he took on the role of Chairman of the West Midlands Confederation of British Industry (CBI), along with becoming a Non-Executive Director at MIRA, a member of the National Employment Panel,  Chairman of Skills4Auto, the Midlands hub of the newly launched Vehicle Academy.

He later became Chairman at MIRA and his significant contribution was key in recognising the need to re-invent MIRA and secure the company’s future growth.

He was a valued Trustee of the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust (JDHT) and attended board meetings on a regular basis and a member of the Jaguar Long Service Association.

As Vice-Chairman of JDHT, on Thursday 24th July 2014 he received, on behalf of the Trust the last Jaguar XK (X150) to be produced.  In a special ceremony at the end of the production line at Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich plant the car was handed over by Castle Bromwich Operations Director, Nicolas Guibert.  Registered with the special number JH14 XKR it is on regular display at the Collections Centre at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon

24 July 2014 Handover of last XK – JH14 XKR
(Mike in shirt and tie by the right rear wing).

Mike Beasley driving the Trust’s 1904 Lanchester
on the London to Brighton Run

His keen interest in the Trust and its collection of vehicles extended to driving them and when required taking part in the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car run driving one of the Trust’s eligible vehicles.

He was one of those behind the planned Jaguar halls in the Coventry Transport Museum where some of the JDHT cars trace the history of Jaguar.  As he said when the Gallery opened:  “The new gallery will tell the story of Jaguar’s fascinating evolution, from its humble beginnings to the world class car manufacturer it is today.”

Mike had many hobbies, among them was the collecting of old cameras some from the early days of photography, but they did not gather dust on a shelf.

Where materials were no longer obtainable, Mike made his own, coating plates and paper with long forgotten emulsion made from original formulae.

He enjoyed talking about his hobbies but only if you were interested, he never bored one about it.  As an engineer he was always fascinated by the way things worked and owned two classic cars – a Daimler V8 and, of course, the classic Jaguar E type.

He built two working model steam locomotives and a miniature railway in the back garden of his home in the village of Balsall Common.  The five-inch (12.7 cm) gauge track stretched for 200 meters and when he was in better health there was nothing he liked more than driving the locomotives and taking his grandchildren for rides.

Sadly he suffered a stroke in the late 2010s, but in his usual determined manner conquered the illness to return to JDHT matters. He continued to attend JDHT meetings during 2020 though he was not in the best of health but he was still sharp and his sense of humour had not left him.

Unfortunately, another stroke took Mike on 3 March 2021.  Mike was a widower, his wife Lyn having died a few years ago, he is survived by his children, thirteen grandchildren and one great grandaughter.

Honours

Mike Beasley was passionate about engineering and achieved many honorary positions and titles.  He was a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Production Engineers.

He was very keen to improve the image of the engineering profession and worked hard to encourage more young people to pursue an interest and career in it.  This all led to him being recognised in the 2002 New Year’s Honours List and he was awarded the CBE for his work with the Birmingham New Deal Task Force, of which he was immensely proud.

He once explained that: “We’re (Jaguar) doing some school programmes where we have classrooms in the plants.  Students can walk into the plant and see what they’ve learned applied in the factory.  Jaguar plants are very clean and high tech.  [Students] pick up a different image to the misty, oil-ridden dirty myth.”

In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Life Fellowship in recognition of his contributions to Coventry University where he was visiting Professor in Engineering Management.

 

Tributes

Many tributes have been paid to Mike:

Former director of JDHT and a long-standing friend and Jaguar colleague of Mike’s, Martyn Hollingsworth wrote on hearing of Mike’s death: “During the past few months, Mike’s health had deteriorated and we were appreciative of his involvement in the Trust’s activities until a short time ago.  We will remember Mike as a great supporter of our work, a thoughtful and experienced man with whom we could share our own thoughts and ideas … but most of all, a friend in which we shared a common interest.  As an active member of the Trust’s Board and Operations Committee, he was close to many of the major initiatives undertaken by the Trust.  Mike was a long standing and highly respected Director of the Trust and his passion for the Jaguar and Daimler brands will be sorely missed by all who knew him.”

John Maries, who worked with him at Jaguar and was later Executive Director of the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust (JDHT) recalled: “Part of the JDHT’s leaving present for Mike was a pair of cast iron station signs for his garden railway.  I’d had a brief interest in the LNWR railway, at some point, and the signs were made up, by the “volunteers”, according to precise specifications (size, typeface, spacings and borders etc) of that railway, and, subsequently, painted by Coventry Transport Museum. From memory, one of them said, “Change here for Browns Lane, Whitley and Halewood.  Mike was one of the good guys”.

Sir John Egan said of him“… [that] he had a huge affection for Jaguar.”

Roger Putnam, who joined Jaguar under Egan, and was former Jaguar Global Marketing Chief and later Chairman of Ford of Britain recalled:  “Mike was held in very high regard by both local and national union officials.  Jaguar’s record on union relationships is pretty good, which owes a lot to Mike’s personality and ability.”  He added: “Mike was a very personal man in many ways but very passionate about things he loved – like cameras, he had some really rare models.  I sold him a couple of mine.  His death is indeed sad news.”

One tribute from a former colleague read:  “He was one of the good guys.  An ok bloke was Mike Beasley”.

Celebration of his life 20 May 2022

Due to the Covid restrictions in early 2021, Mike’s funeral was a small family only affair, so on 20 May 2022 his family, with assistance from JDHT and the British Motor Museum held a Celebration of his life at the Museum.  Friends and colleagues from Jaguar and MIRA joined his family in the Sky Suite for the afternoon.  Sir John Egan led the tribute detailing his experiences working with Mike through the periods of privatisation and into the Ford era.  To many people Sir John is known for his book ‘Saving Jaguar’  but it became clear through his tribute that without Mike, saving the Castle Bromwich plant in particular and probably the  company would not have been possible.
Sir John was followed by JDHT Chairman Matthew Davies who read Mike’s eulogy in front of a backdrop of a carousel of pictures of his life, from childhood to retirement projected onto the display screens.

Post Script

Mike’s extensive camera collection has been donated to the Royal Photographic Society as per the request in his will for it to be used for educational purposes.  They are currently preparing an area of their museum for it to go on display.
His garden railway was donated to the Bridge View Light Railway at Russell’s Garden Centre in Baginton which he had visited a few times with his great nephews who live close by, and enjoyed chats with the volunteers.

Authors:  Beasley Family, François Prins, Martyn Hollingsworth, Shihanki Elpitiya and Tony Merrygold

© Text and Images – Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust

 

Sources and Further Reading: