News on Screen

Series

Series Name

The Pacemakers

Issue

Issue No.

9

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. Lord Stokes

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

COI synopsis: Lord Stokes of Leyland - the name and title have a sonorous, very British ring to them. The man who carries them is British alright but not quite the type of Briton you might imagine. He’s the chief executive of the British Leyland Motor Corporation and when you’ve unscrambled that title you find it means half of Britain’s motor industry wrapped in one parcel, and Lord Stokes sitting firmly on top. Virtually all the great names in British cars and trucks are in the parcel - Ausstin, Morris, Triumph, Jaguar, MG Daimler, Leyland buses, Scammell trucks and many many more. The boss - the subject of this film - is a cheerful, cherubic man with more than a glint of steel underneath. The amalgamation of all the British Motor companies is his own idea, a plan he has pushed to fruition. He joined the famous Leyland truck company as an apprentice in 1930. He drew up the plans for expansion after World War II. In 1949, aged 35, he was Sales Manager. In the mid 1950s can the start of the sorties, the acquisitions and the mergers that brought him to the position where the highflying Stokes engineered the merger with the giant of the industry, British Motors. The minnow swallowed the whale. Lord Stoke’s style remains the same: he wants to know everything that is going on and he pushes his men to sell hard. He’s a trained engineer and can hold his own with designers in the drawing office and craftsmen on the factory floor. As a salesman he’s lost none of his skills - as you can see in this film - and his global exploits are always attracting attention: midnight flights to the Middle East, chasing bus orders in Moscow, selling buses to Cuba to the chagrin of some politicians. Lord Stokes is a twentieth century version of Britain’s tradition in merchant - adventurers, and the records show his success. His company has a turnover of £974 million pounds sterling, and exports nearly half of it. This film shows a man who carries the responsibility easily, who can sell his cars at London’s motor show, hold his own in a hard-punching television interview, understand the problems of a man on the assembly line, and chat with restrained glee about his own meteoric rise.

Keywords

Business and commerce; Industry and manufacture; Motor vehicles

Written sources

COI Catalogue Cards [BFI National Archive]
Viewing Copy - BFI National Archive
COI Microfilm Roll 16 [BFI National Archive]   Used for synopsis

COI Reference

MI 1461/9

Credits:

Sponsor

Central Office of Information (COI)

Sponsor

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

This series is held by:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries:
nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk
For commercial/footage reuse enquiries:
footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

View all series held by British Film Institute (BFI)