Glasgow Business . 27 www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com


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NE of the most striking facets in the Chamber Champions series is the range of commitments and contributions that these remarkable individuals had outside their ‘day job’. T is


is no truer than when you look at the life and career of


Sir Charles Oakley. Oakley was an academic, Second World War industrial


administrator and post-war economic development specialist who returned to academia and who throughout the diff erent strands of his career kept up a remarkable creative output as a writer, journalist and cartoonist. His Chamber contributions included him being founding


Chair of Glasgow Junior Chamber of Commerce, President of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and President of the Association of Scot ish Chambers of Commerce. He started his working life at John Brown’s at Clydebank,


serving a ‘sandwich’ apprenticeship of six years that saw him spend four winter sessions at the University of Glasgow, taking degrees in naval architecture and mechanical engineering. Oakley’s planned career in shipbuilding, however, suff ered


from the decline in the industry and so he went to study at the then Jordanhill Teachers Training College. He had intended to join the staff of the Glasgow Education


Authority, but was instead off ered an assistant lectureship in educational psychology at Aberdeen University. He worked for three sessions before returning for a lectureship in industrial psychology, a post just established by a commit ee of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. He became the Scot ish Director of the National Institute


of Industrial Psychology. In the early 1930s, through his connections with Glasgow


Chamber, he became a consultant to the Scot ish Development Council that was formed to at ract new industries to Scotland. A consistently prolifi c writer, he wrote scores of articles on


new industrial processes and products and wrote the book Scot ish Industry Today for the Empire Exhibition in 1938. He was involved in the creation of the Hillington Industrial


Estate for which he wrote the introductory brochure. T e estate was slow to take off and so Oakley was one of a number of business fi gures who founded manufacturing companies to rent factory units. Oakley’s company was called Jean MacGregor’s Scot ish


Soups and he used to reveal, with a twinkle in his eye, that he was Jean MacGregor. Given that soup was not rationed during the war, as he wrote, “consequently the company boomed”. He became a civil servant at the outbreak of the Second


World War, a role he was to remain in for 15 years. He was appointed fi rstly as Scot ish Area Offi cer of the Air Ministry and then was promoted to being Scot ish Controller of the Ministry of Aircraſt Production. By the end of the War, his responsibilities had been extended to include aircraſt production in Northern Ireland. For the seven years aſt er the war, Oakley was Scot ish


Controller of the Board of Trade where, he wrote, his “principal tasks were to get a score of industrial estates and to persuade non-Scot ish companies (principally American) to establish branch factories in Scotland.” In 1953, he returned to academia at Glasgow University, this time focusing on Management Studies. He also joined


management consultants Urwick, Orr and Partners, remaining associated with them until 1974 and was also a director of another fi rm of consultants, E G Brisch and Partners. For eight years in the 1960s, Dr Oakley was successively


Deputy President and President of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and then held similar offi ces with the Association of Scot ish Chambers of Commerce. In these roles he led trade missions to West Germany, France and Poland. His interest in Further Education led him to be Chairman


of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce Education Commit ee. He also chaired the British Chambers Commercial Apprenticeship Board and its commit ee that aimed to encourage younger business people to study foreign languages. In Scotland, he was also chair of the commit ee that created


SCOTBEC, the Scot ish Business Education Council. In 1947, he had accepted the responsibility for establishing


the British Institute of Management in Scotland and went on to chair its Scot ish Council for a decade. He was Chairman of the Council of Central College, Vice


Chairman of the Glasgow College of Technology Council and Chairman of Strathclyde Schools/Industry Liaison Commit ee. One lasting legacy of Oakley’s life came through one of his


great loves: fi lm. Oakley was one of the founders of the British Film Institute and was Chairman of the Scot ish Film Council for almost 40 years. In 1939, George Singleton, a member of one of Glasgow’s


cinema chain families, and Oakley founded the Cosmo which was Scotland’s fi rst fi ne arts cinema and only the second purpose-built arthouse in Britain aſt er the Curzon Mayfair in London. T e Cosmo was, of course, the forerunner of Glasgow Film


T eatre that now occupies the same site in Rose Street. T e opening of the Cosmo saw the fi rst appearance of Mr


Cosmo, a dapper and bowler-hat ed cartoon character based on George Singleton that was designed by Charles Oakley. Mr Cosmo fi gured on posters and adverts for the cinema


and popped up on-screen ahead of the main feature in either a tragic or comic pose, depending on the fi lm. It is perhaps for the creation of Mr Cosmo and for his fi nal


book, Dear Old Glasgow, that Dr Charles Oakley lives on in popular memory.


HE EVEN HAD TIME TO WRITE BOOKS... AND LOTS OF THEM


One of the many remarkable facets of Charles Oakley’s life was that, with the range and depth of his professional commitments, he found time to write around 20 books. These ranged from works about industry and commerce through works about


Glasgow to Where We Came In: Seventy Years of the British Film Industry. One of the most popular works was Men At Work, which was published in the UK


and then republished in the US. He wrote on the carpet industry - The Carpet Makers: One Hundred Years of Designing and Manufacturing Carpets of Quality. His books about Glasgow included The Second City, which went through at least three editions and nine print runs, and The Last Tram.


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