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John Lawrence

Page history last edited by Ian Gillis 2 months, 1 week ago Saved with comment

 

 

 

Tributes

 

Henry John Edward Lawrence passed away 12/01/24 (he was 98.5 years of age) in Broomfield Hospital. The funeral will take place on Friday 9th February at 14.00 at North Chapel, Chelmsford Crematorium, Writtle Rd, CM1 3BL.

His last years were at Cherrywood Grange, formerly South Lodge Hotel, just over the railway bridge from the Marconi Radar Writtle Road Works. 

 

John Lawrence was born in 1925 , and he had an interesting career with Marconi. 

 

He went to the Enfield Technical College in 1943 and left with an HND in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering in 1945. He joined, on a Commission, the Royal Signals Regiment in 1945 and, in 1949, joined Siemens Brothers in Woolwich. The Company was subsequently absorbed into AEI/GEC.

In 1951 he joined the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Services Equipment Division headed by Col. E N Elford; where he worked in the Contracts Section at New Street. His team were purchasing the Installation Materials for the ROTOR / VAST Project, to go into the bonded stores at Great Bromley. He was later involved in the HMG BOOKLET Programme in Germany, GRAPPLE X (Christmas Island), PD (Passive Detection) UK, Type 84 UK, Malta, Cyprus.

By 1960 he was Chief of Contracts (HMG) and was appointed Deputy Manager of the Defence Projects Group of Radar Division under John Sutherland, where he was involved in LINESMAN / MEDIATOR, CONDOR (Pakistan), TONIC (Iran), plus other ongoing HMG Projects.

In 1966 he was Assistant Technical Manager to J K Todd. The company was reorganised into the Marconi Radar Systems Ltd. and he was made Field Services Manager at Broomfield. In 1970 Field Services moved to Writtle Road Works.

In December that year John was appointed Project Manager of the existing SAGEU Contract Group of AEI. In April 1971 he and his wife Shirley and family relocated to Riyadh, where they stayed until April 1975. With the rundown of the SAGEU Project, through handover of the sites to Lockheed on behalf of the RSAF, he became Operations Manager for Marconi Radar Systems, and a Director of the IBAC Consortium (Iran).

In June 1976 he was requested to take up the responsibility as the Project Manager for the Marconi / Plessey joint-venture turnkey project of RAF Saxa Vord in the Shetlands.

Following on in July 1979, he was appointed Proposal Manager for the Marconi Radar Bid for IUKADGE.  He became the Project Manager and moved in June 1982 to the job of Projects Controller of Air Space Control Division. At this time the Division was moving to full Project Management, and he was involved with Tom Humphries in the formalisation of the Project Management Manual with computerised systems.

In April 1984 he became the Operations Manager of Air Space Control Division. In January 1987 he became the Counter-purchase Manager for Marconi Radar Systems, his last position within the Company.

 

John’s career was continually interrupted by the reorganisations imposed on the Company from above, and the emergency hole-plugging on projects that were going wrong. It is to his credit that he was able to survive all these upper management illusions that they knew what they were doing.

On a personal note I never worked for him, other than first meeting him in Saudi Arabia. I always found him to be direct and straight to the point, and he always seemed to have a smile. He was a continuous thread through the organisation.

 RIP John.

Malcolm G D Mack

Written for and on behalf of Marcia and Amanda Lawrence.

 

From Russ A:

In the 1980s, I was the Company Procurement Manager at Marconi Radar Systems, based at Writtle Road. I worked with John in his final Marconi role as the Counter Purchase Manager. This was a key role. He visited the countries where Radar had offset obligations seeking out any organisations capable of providing suitable goods and services for use across the Radar businesses. 

 As well as meeting senior representatives in the UK, he regularly toured Finland, Denmark and other European countries assessing offset opportunities. His long experience in Marconi and his personality made him ideal for this role which required a mixture of technical and commercial knowledge as well as diplomacy and the ability to work with people

 Eventually, I moved off to Stanmore, but I recall he was still in this role as a consultant up to the merger with BAe in 2000

 John and I spoke from time to time through the years and exchanged Christmas cards each year until this year. I am pleased to have counted John as a friend as well as a colleague.

 

From Eric T:

I first met John shortly after I joined MRSL in Gateshead as Manager Production Control and Supplies in the mid 70s when I was told in no uncertain terms that the Saxa Vord project had to be on time as "it was one of John Lawrence's projects". Things used to happen when John was around and looking at his Marconi history that seems to be a theme, along with a warm personality where people used to want to help John's projects. 

 My last involvement with John was in the late 80's when he was Counter Purchase Manager and I was working as Commercial Manager in the Gateshead Division, when we were both tasked by Russ Armitage as Company Procurement Manager with exploring offset opportunities in Finland. John, as unstoppable as ever, travelled far more extensively in Finland than I did at that time and, being a hardy soul, ventured some quite cold, inhospitable places, with his leather gloves, scarf and fur hat. Scandinavia wasn't new to him of course but it really was the exact opposite of the time he had spent with his family in Saudi. 

 John's death at 98 1/2 does seem to bring to an end an era within the Radar company, where a group of technically well qualified engineers did take on the world and built up a British business to be proud of; I think that he must have been the last survivor of that original group and he will be sorely missed by those of us, (younger and more junior at the time) who worked with him over many years.

 

From Don H:

John was one of those people that one recognised as a founding father of Marconi Radar, even if one never worked with or for him. He always seemed to greet you with a beaming smile suggesting avuncular goodwill; “Hail fellow, well met!”.

 The last time we spoke at work was during his Counter-Purchasing time, when he called me to say “Don, the other day I was talking to some contacts who asked me whether the Company subscribed to Six Sigma. I had no idea what they were talking about; can you enlighten me, please?”

 I was able to give him a very brief resume of the Six Sigma process improvement technique, although I was not aware of any Radar use of it. John listened, chortled, and signed off with “Thank you, I shall know just what to say next time.”

 

From Barry F:

Very sad news to hear John has died. John was my manager during 1967 - 1969 when I was in Greece, Turkey and Iran. He was a good manager and gave me a lot of support. He also had a very keen sense of humour. 
When the radar blew up in Mashhad , caused by Iranian technicians’ failure to dry the pads in the Bullows Filter after cleaning in petrol, the U.K. government took responsibility and John, John Crabb and a guy from the ministry came to Mashhad to resolve the issue. They stayed in my house for a couple of nights during which time we partied with the RAF and drank far more than we should have and he elected me as driver, being the least drunk, which was questionable !! He also agreed the short wheelbase landrover I was supplied with should be given to the Shahabad site and approved the purchase of a brand new, bright red Peykan (an Iranian built Hillman Hunter) for me. He was always very good company at the Marconi Vets lunch until ill health prevented him from taking part. He will be missed by all who worked with him.

 

__________________________________________________________ 

 

Photo from Marcia Lawrence (daughter)

 

john lawrence

Henry John Lawrence in Saudi Arabia

 

Photos from Dave Perkins

 

MCATP Vol 17 Christmas 1966
RHS manager H.J.LAWRENCE

 

MCATP Vol 17 November 1966
Presentation at Church Green H.J.Lawrence. Manager Field Services

 

MCATP Vol 16 January 1966
Photo taken at buffet dance of the
Golfing Society at Waterhouse Lane.  
Left to right, Paddy Duff, Roland Crompton and John Lawrence.

 

From Malcolm M

I first met John Lawrence in Riyadh, when he came to see me after Gordon Sewell ( Head Medic) had rescued me from Riyadh Airport. I had an attack of Hypoxemic Hypoxia (oxygen deficiency), on a flight from Tabuk to Riyadh with George Costley. Gordon happened to be at the airport and took charge. John came to see if I was alright before Gordon took me to the Airworks hospital for a check up. Must have been OK as I was on a plane to Taif a week later. The next time I met him was when I was about to leave Saudi, and he wanted me to stay with Mike Hill and Norman Davies, as the first phase of site handover was about to start. John came to ask us to stay, whilst Ron Cummings gave us the technical datails of what he wanted us to do with the Lockheed Acceptance Teams.
I never worked directly for John in the future, but I think that these two incidents summarise the strength of the man as a manager. Someone who took an interest in the people who worked for him; after all he didn't have to do either. During my last three months stay in Riyadh I met Shirley (John's wife) and daughters, Amanda and Marcia on a social basis.
The last time I saw John was in 1996, when he brought the battery charger from Shirley's golf buggy for repair.

 

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