NORTHCOTT, Clarence Hunter
Type
4th February 1880 to 26th January 1968
Related Items
Occupation
Biographical Text
Northcott was a senior manager with the Rowntree company in York.
Northcott was born on 4 February 1880 in Ulmarra, New South Wales, the son of a farmer. He was educated at Ulmarra public school and then Grafton Superior Public School and Fort Street Training School in Sydney, where he trained as a schoolteacher. He then worked as a teacher while also attending the University of Sydney, graduating with a BA in sociology in 1905 and later taking his MA in 1916. He married Nellie May Francis in 1904.
Northcott had a strong social conscience and believed in the power of education. As Bourke (2000) puts it, ‘Northcott, who was an active member of the Methodist Church, believed that social science should serve a Christian mission. His early conviction that industrial democracy and co-operation would produce social efficiency and an ethical society remained the guiding philosophy of his career.’ As well as teaching in schools, he also gave lectures on sociology at the Workers’ Education Association. In 1916 he moved to New York to study at Columbia University under the sociologist Franklin Giddings, taking his PhD in 1918.
In 1919 Northcott met Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree in Boston during the latter’s visit to America. Rowntree was impressed by Northcott’s ideas and recruited him to join the Rowntree company, initially as an advisor on statistics. He went on to become labour manager, a post he held until his retirement in 1946. He was one of the organisers of the Rowntree conferences, where he gave a number of papers, and also chaired the labour section of the Management Research Groups. In his working life, Northcott was constantly on the lookout for new ideas to help manage people more effectively. He travelled several times to the USA and Australia, where he also gave lectures on Rowntree’s initiatives.
Northcott was one of the founders of the Institute of Labour Management in 1931, and then helped transform it into the Institute of Personnel Management (now the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). He served as the institute’s president from 1941-3 and director from 1949-50. In 1948 he undertook a survey of Kenya on behalf of the Colonial Office. Northcott died at Scorton in Yorkshire on 26 January 1968.
Northcott’s books, like his Rowntree conference papers, are a blend of scientific method, industrial democracy and Christian principles. Factory Organisation, his best-known book, co-authored with fellow Rowntree managers Oliver Sheldon, Lyndall Urwick and James Wardropper, strongly reflects the management style and principles of the Rowntree company, and repeats many of the themes found in the conference papers. A later book, Christian Principles in Industry, seeks to apply lessons from the New Testament to management.
In his first Rowntree lecture, Northcott sets out his own philosophy very strongly. He draws a link between fair wages and efficiency, and after a lengthy discussion of what ‘fairness’ might constitute, argues that fairness and equity are the best way to achieve efficiency:
We can buy efficient machines, but we cannot buy true human efficiency. To obtain the latter, we must not only give each person appliances and arrangements to enable him to do his best work, we must also see that he is working in the position for which lie is best fitted, and under conditions in respect of wages and control that satisfy his sense of justice. A considerably greater degree of efficiency can be secured if human relations are just.
In a later paper he is highly critical of the idea of a minimum wage, arguing that this will trap workers in poverty, and instead repeats his call for fair wages. He also argues strongly in favour of worker participation in management, but acknowledges that implementing such a system is not easy; the first pre-requisite, he says, is that both sides must learn to trust each other. Only then will they be prepared to work together in mutual harmony.
Major works
Australian Social Development, 1918.
(with O. Sheldon, J.W. Wardropper and L. Urwick) Factory Organisation, 1928.
Personnel Management: Its Scope and Practice, 1945.
Christian Principles in Industry, 1958.
Bibliography
Brech, E.F.L., The Evolution of Modern Management, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002.
Niven, M.M., Personnel Management, 1913-63: The Growth of Personnel Management and the Development of the Institute, London: Institute of Personnel Management, 1967.
Original Source
Lectures:
‘Equity and efficiency in wage distribution’, 15 April 1921, Balliol College
‘The problem of the minimum wage’, 25 September 1921, Balliol College
‘Sharing control within the works: a working policy’, 26 February 1922, York
‘Methods of remuneration’, 21 September 1923, Balliol College
‘The conference method in industry’, September 1924, Balliol College
‘Incentives to increased output’, April 1926, Balliol College
‘Management duty in co-operation’, April 1927, Balliol College
‘Introducing the young worker into industry’, April 1928, Balliol College
‘Whither is industry trending?’, April 1929, Balliol College
‘The degree to which an employer should deal with unemployment’, September 1929, Balliol College