Sir Kenneth Lee, 1st Baronet

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Sir Kenneth Lee, 1st Baronet (1879 – 18 October 1967) was an English businessman and civil servant.

Born in 1879,[1] his family were "long connected with the cotton industry".[2] His grandfather Henry Lee had founded the cotton manufacturer Tootal Broadhurst Lee and his father Harold Lee, JP (died 1936) had been a senior executive in the company.[3][4] Lee was involved in the company's management by the late 1900s, when he met the American soprano (daughter of the impresario ) while he was in the United States on business; they married in London in 1910.[4][5] Lee was subsequently chairman and president of his family's business. He was pioneered the use of scientific research in the industry and played a role in inventing crease-resistant processes.[2]

During the First World War, Lee sat on the and government advisory committees on trade, industry and patents. From 1925, he was a member of the commission investigating the coal industry. He was knighted in 1934. When the Second World War broke out, he was appointed Director-General of the Ministry of Information in 1939, serving until 1940. In 1940, he was a member of the UK's trade mission to South America and in 1941 was appointed one of the Board of Trade's representatives in the US.[2] He was created a baronet in 1941 and died on 18 October 1967.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ Board of Trade Journal, vol. 146 (1941), p. 393.
  2. ^ a b c "Sir Kenneth Lee", The Times (London), 20 October 1967, p. 12. Gale CS204041556.
  3. ^ "Mr. Harold Lee", Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 26 June 1936, p. 6.
  4. ^ a b "Society and Personal", Aberdeen Press and Journal, 17 May 1910, p. 4.
  5. ^ "Another Stage Romance", Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 16 May 1910, p. 2.
  6. ^ "Lee, Sir Kenneth", Who Was Who (online ed., Oxford University Press, 2021). Retrieved 1 February 2022.


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