Urwick on the business academy

Abstract

L yndall Urwick was born in England in 1891. He attended Repton and New College, Oxford, and was awarded a B.A. degree in 1913 and an M.A. degree in 1919. He began his career in his family's glove manufacturing business, Fownes Brothers and Company. Following service in the First World War, he became organizing secretary for Rowntree and Company, a confectioner. He subsequently moved to the position of administrator of the Management Research Groups and then became Director of the International Management Institute in Geneva in 1929. When the Great Depression cut short the life of the Institute, Urwick returned to England and established the management consultancy Urwick, Orr and Partners. During World War II he was an advisor in organization to His Majesty's Treasury, and in 1942 he moved to the Petroleum Warfare Departmerit. From 1945 until 1965 Urwick continued his work as a management consultant and served as a visiting faculty member at such universities as Toronto, New South Wales, California, and Minnesota. He retired to Australia, where he died in 1983 at the age of 92. Urwick's books include: Factory Organization (1928), coauthored with C. Northcott, O. Sheldon, and J. Wardopper; The Meaning of Rationalization (1929); and with H. Metcalf, Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mark Parker Follett (1941). He also wrote a number of shorter works published by such groups as the British Institute of Management, the Institute of Labor Management, the Institute of Personnel Management, the American Management Association, and the Academy of Management. In the late 1920s, Urwick became a vigorous advocate for a staff college for industry. He felt that such an institution was urgently needed and should be structured along the lines of the existing staff colleges of the various branches of the military. In 1942 he was joined in his efforts by others who provided planning support and came up with sufficient money and students to give the project a reasonable chance for success. In 1948, the Administrative Staff College was opened by Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of England. It served as a model for many other similar undertakings that followed, both in Great Britain and throughout the world. During his lifetime, Urwick's membership in professional associations included The British Institute of Management (fellow), the International Academy of Management (charter fellow), the Academy of Management (fellow), and the American Management Association (life member). Among the awards he received were the Order of the British Empire and Military Cross (British Army), Gantt Medal (American Management Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers), and Knight, First Class, Order of Saint Olaf (Norway). Additional biographical details about Urwick can be found in the London Times (1983), the work of Trosky (1984), and the writing of Bedian (1984), from which the information presented here was extracted. Many early management texts, such as Mooney and Reiley (1939), Dennison (1931), and Sheldon (1923), can provide supporting background particulars as well.