thirties. From 1942 the board of directors had been strengthened by the presence of Walford Scott Green, my father’s younger first cousin, another lawyer and wartime naval officer. Bobby Scott, also non-executive, and John McAusland, as mill manager and executive director, were appointed to the board in the early 1950s. Maddin Scott remained as the non-executive chairman and was
seen by the farming community as the personification of the company. Within the workforce, I believe, he was regarded with affection as well as respect, as a genial presence with paternalistic attitudes and concerns. These led in 1958 to the unusual step for a small business, of creating a contributory company pension fund, which all employees and executives were content to join. It has been of great personal benefit to all retired employees, including myself. I was born in 1938, as much the youngest of my family of five,
and from my early years there was a presumption that I would join the family business. Maddin, remembering his lack of business training, decided that after my school years I should follow some relevant form of tertiary education. This lasted for about three years, coincidentally ending at the time of my father’s decease in 1962. In 1950, Maddin was able to put the daily management of the
mill into the competent hands of John McAusland (pictured left). He was then free in that same year to prepare for the celebration of the mill’s centenary. It may well have been his suggestion that this event should be marked by the production of a book, dealing with the company’s history since 1850, which Maddin enthusiastically undertook to edit and to be a contributor. This developed into something of much more general interest than a focused account of the company’s progress, and was
Above: A centenary picture showing some of the workers and administrative staff of W & C Scott Limited in August 1950
largely based on contributions about County Tyrone by popular local poets and writers. It also contained previously unpublished memoirs by earlier generations of the Scott family. Business histories, particularly of small family businesses, were
almost unheard of in in the early 1950s. To everyone’s surprise, “A Hundred Years a-Milling” became a great success, in terms of almost worldwide book reviews sparking particular interest in rural USA, but also as far away as in Australia and New Zealand. Published in 1952, the first edition sold out within six weeks. A second edition followed almost directly and was similarly well-received, though as both editions were keenly priced they did not represent a money-spinner for the company. At times, John McAusland felt that the half-yearly directors’
meetings tended to allocate more time to the book’s progress than to that of the company . However, the board was fully aware of the opportunities created by the UK’s revolutionary 1947 Agriculture Act, as will be covered in the second part of this history to be included in the Jan/Feb 2021 issue of Feed Compounder.
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PAGE 46 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 FEED COMPOUNDER
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