John was General Manager and a Director of one of the largest sole-leather tanneries on Merseyside. He was married for more than 60 years to Margaret, a Justice of the Peace, and for most of that time they lived in Runcorn, Cheshire.
John was born in British Honduras in around 1888. His father was a Methodist minister who was later stationed in Plymouth, UK. John won a scholarship to Plymouth College where he studied Latin and Greek among other subjects, in accordance with his father’s wish that he become a minister, too. But John’s mind was more on the professions.
When his father moved to Runcorn, Cheshire, John found it difficult to get a job. One of his father’s congregation was a leading tanner, and when father spoke to him, he said, ‘Tell him to come along at six in the morning, put on his working clothes. I don’t think he’ll be much good but at any rate I’ll give him a chance.’
John found himself handling heavy hides and wet vats. He said, ‘As you walk along the deep pits [full of] the tanning liquor, you need a sure sense of tread and a poor sense of smell.’
When the First World War broke out, John joined the King’s Own Liverpool battalion. But the training was too severe and he developed middle-ear trouble. He was discharged from the army, which he thought ‘a terrible thing’.
By the time he recovered, the leather industry had become a protected trade, meaning that the work was considered too important for him to be called up again.
John went into sales, where he did well. After some ten years, he helped set up a separate tannery that specialised in ‘American’ leather for the souls of shoes.
During all this time, John was very active in the church. ‘I thought I was no end of a good fellow’, he said. ‘But not everyone did apparently, as my sister gave me a book called, “For Sinners Only”.’
John was convinced that absolute honesty would not work in business so he ‘turned it down flat’.
However, he was later approached by a youth leader at a local Anglican church. He told John, ‘I have come to see you because I’m in a mess. I seem to have lost my faith and I have lost my affection for my wife and my children, and I just don’t know what to do.’ John felt that the best thing to do was to suggest to this man that they try a time of listening for God’s guidance. John had a clear thought: ‘Until you have been honest with your wife and your family, you will never help this man or anybody else.’
Being honest with Margaret about things that were wrong in his life was difficult but it led to a new relationship.
By the time of World War II, John was Director and General Manager of the Camden Tannery in Runcorn. There was a one-day stoppage, which took management by surprise. Evidently there had been a build-up of grievances. John told Margaret about this, and they had a time of quiet reflection. Margaret said, ‘Why don’t you be as honest with the men as you have been with me? It works at home, why shouldn’t it work in the tannery?’
John said that he was ‘furious’ but knew deep down that his wife was right.
This was the start of a transformation in the tannery.
John assembled the workforce and told them they would be working on a new basis. He called in the shop steward. 'Tom,' he said, 'I have not trusted you and have given you no reason to trust me. I'm sorry about that. I want to operate on a basis of complete honesty with all cards on the table on the basis of what’s right, not who’s right.’
Tom was sceptical. But John called in the union and asked them to go through the wage rates. He alarmed the directors, but convinced the workforce that he meant business. Finally a works council was created, long before they were fashionable, with an equal number of workers and staff elected in each department. This became the focus of a new partnership whereby management and the trade union representatives could discuss all matters relating to the business. Remarkably, nearly all of the decisions made by the works council were passed unanimously.
One man told John, ‘I find you are human. I thought you lived in a different realm altogether from us.’
John was subsequently for 21 years the Chairman of the Leather Institute, which he himself founded. He was also a Trustee of the Tirley Garth Trust, which owned the MRA centre in Cheshire.
He died in 1988 at the age of 101.
For an article about John Nowell's story, see here.
