Ian MacGregor

Sir Ian Kinloch MacGregor, KBE (21 September 1912 – 13 April 1998) was a Scottish metallurgist and industrialist. He worked in the United States from World War II until the early 1970s. He became a naturalised American after World War II, but retained his British citizenship. He is most famous in the UK for his controversial tenure at the British Steel Corporation and his conduct during the 1984–85 miners' strike while managing the National Coal Board.

Early life MacGregor was born in Kinlochleven, Scotland. His parents were Daniel MacGregor, an accountant at the British Aluminium plant, and his wife Grace Alexanderina, née Fraser Maclean, a schoolteacher. During the General Strike of 1926, his elder brothers drove trams in Glasgow to help break the strike. He attended George Watson's College, Edinburgh and Hillhead High School, Glasgow. At the University of Glasgow, MacGregor studied metallurgy and engineering with some distinction, receiving a first-class degree. He then earned a diploma with distinction at the Royal College of Science and Technology.

MacGregor started work as a metallurgist in 1935, alongside his father in the Kinlochleven aluminium plant but he was soon recruited as a junior manager at William Beardmore and Company's Parkhead Forge to work on vehicle armour.

At the start of World War II in 1939, MacGregor went to work for the Ministry of Supply on the development of tanks. Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook was the next to spot his talent and commandeered him to travel to Canada and the US on procurement missions for aviation armour. He was then seconded to the British military mission in the US where he started to become familiar with US industry, was greeted with considerable disdain by the National Union of Mineworkers, in particular its president Arthur Scargill. Scargill was concerned at MacGregor's uncompromising business methods,

MacGregor's approach to turning the NCB into a profitable concern was similar to the line he had taken at British Steel: cut jobs and close unprofitable pits. This led to the protracted and increasingly bitter 1984–1985 miner's strike. Despite many meetings between the two opposing sides no agreement was ever reached, and the UK coal industry continued its decline when the strike finished.

Later life MacGregor retired from the NCB in 1986, rejoining Lazard's as a non-executive director. In the UK, there were campaigns to appoint him as head of the National Health Service and to the board of directors of British Gas plc but without success. He enjoyed a variety of company chairmanships including Goldcrest Films, but was disappointed to be forcibly retired from two US companies when he reached 78.

Personality and private life He married Sybil Spencer (died 1996) in Washington, D.C. in 1942; she was from Wales. They had a son and a daughter. MacGregor split his time between his homes in New York, Bermuda and Loch Fyne. MacGregor was chairman of Religion in American Life and, in the UK, the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training.

Death

MacGregor died of a heart attack, at Taunton, Somerset and was cremated. NUM vice-president at the time, Mick McGahey said, "It's no loss to people of my ilk. MacGregor was a vicious anti-trades unionist, anti-working class person, recruited by the Tory government quite deliberately for the purpose of destroying trade unionism in the mining industry. I will not suffer any grief, nor will I in any way cry over the loss of Ian MacGregor." Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "He brought a breath of fresh air to British industry and he had such a genial personality. He had a tremendous way of putting things. He made a real difference and I was very grateful when he came back to this country."

Honours John Fritz Medal, (1981); Bessemer Gold Medal, (1983) Knighthood, (1986); Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, (1972).