Harold Atcherley

Sir Harold Winter Atcherley (30 August 1918 – 29 January 2017) was a businessman, public figure and arts administrator in the United Kingdom.

Early life The son of L. W. Atcherley and his wife Maude Lester Nash, Atcherley was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Geneva University, and Heidelberg University.

Career Atcherley joined Royal Dutch Shell in 1937. From 1939, he served through the Second World War in the Queen's Westminster Rifles (1939–1940) and the Intelligence Corps, 1940, then in the 18th Infantry Division in Singapore. After the fall of Singapore in 1942 he became a prisoner of war of the Japanese and worked on the Burma Railway until the war ended in 1945, then in 1946 he returned to Royal Dutch Shell. With that company he served in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Argentina, and Brazil until 1959 and was the RDS Group's Personnel co-ordinator from 1964 until 1970.

He was Recruitment Advisor to the Ministry of Defence, 1970–1971, and Chairman of Tyzack & Partners, 1979–1985. He was also a director of British Home Stores, 1973–1987. In retirement, as of 2008 he lived in London. Atcherley died on 29 January 2017, aged 98.

Appointments Chairman, Armed Forces' Pay Review Body (1971–1982) In the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, Atcherley, writing in The Independent, ascribed the fundamental causes of the disaster to the non-observation by the British government of the Balfour Declaration. On 6 September 2001, a letter from Atcherley was published in London's The Independent newspaper, headed Reports of my death... and enquiring why for two years running the newspaper had failed to include his name in its Today's Birthdays column. He suggested:

His birthday, however, has continued to be reported in The Times.