Tributes paid to North East businessman Dr Ralph Iley

Mar 17 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

TRIBUTES have been paid to a late North East businessman who founded an international business empire.

Dr Ralph Iley, CBE, who has died aged 83, helped grow the Tyneside-founded Cookson Group into an international concern. He won The Journal North East Businessman of the Year Award at the age of 63 in 1991, just a few months before he retired as Cookson’s managing director.

Away from work he was well-known for his love of pigeon racing and leek growing. He lived in Tynemouth and while Cookson MD would still find time to tend to the 200 pigeons and prize leeks on the North Shields allotment he had tended since he was 13.

Sir Fred Holliday, former chairman of Northumbrian Water and the Go-Ahead Group, had worked alongside Dr Iley at both Northumbrian Water and Newcastle-based private equity firm Northern Investors, where Dr Iley held non-executive positions.

He said: “He was solid gold. I am sorry to hear he has passed away. He was one of the North East greats. Whoever up there is keeping the book on North East greats will have put his name in there.”

Mr Iley had been ill for some time and died in January. He was buried in Preston Cemetery, North Shields, following a service at St George’s Church, Cullercoats. He leaves behind his wife Dorothy and their daughter Chrissy.

Dr Iley attended Tynemouth Grammar School, and King’s College, Durham (now Newcastle University). His career began in 1949 as a research chemist with the Associated Lead Company, later part of the Cookson Group.

By 1976, he was a member of the Cookson board and persuaded his fellow directors to set up two new operations in the North East, Cookson Entek at Killingworth and Cookson Fukuda at North Shields.

He was made managing director in 1987 and colleagues said his great tactical strength as a boss lay in his introduction of a new corporate culture to the firm through the appointment of a succession of younger managers.

Sir Fred said: “When we worked together at Northern Investors he would always offer unusual but quality good advice.

“His knowledge and experience had given him an insider’s view of how things work. He could see where the nuggets of gold were hidden and where the lumps of fool’s gold where located.

“He was very proud of the North East and very proud of being a man of the North East.”

Sir Fred recounted how he and Dr Iley rarely disagreed, but for one subject.

“He loved pigeon racing and I love watching birds of prey. If he had his way he would have armed his pigeons to shoot down any eagles that came near. We would often wind each other up on the subject.”

The Cookson Group, which was founded on Tyneside over 200 years ago, is now an international concern, listed on the FTSE, and employing over 14,000 people in over 40 countries.