PYBUS, Percy John
Type
25th January 1880 to 23rd October 1935
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Occupation
Biographical Text
John Pybus was an engineer and company director who later became a Liberal MP.
Pybus was born in Hull on 25 January 1880. He was educated at Hull Technical College and then apprenticed at Priestman Brothers, an engineering firm based in Hull. From 1898-1900 he worked as a draftsman for Priestman Brothers before joining the design department at Siemens Dynamo Works in Stafford. In 1902 he became assistant works manager at the plant.
In 1907 Pybus was appointed works manager of the Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Company, and in 1910 he was promoted to the post of managing director. He was awarded the CBE in 1917. In 1918 Phoenix merged with several other firms to form English Electric Company, and Pybus became joint managing director. His book Labour: Its Output and Reward, was published in 1920.
In 1921 Pybus became sole managing director of English Electric, and in 1926 was appointed chairman. He retired from the board of English Electric in 1931. Pybus also served on several other boards including The Times Newspaper Group, London Guarantee and Accident Company, British Portland Cement Manufacturers and Metal Traders Ltd, and served as chairman of the Phoenix Assurance Company.
Pybus entered politics in 1928, and in 1929 was elected as Liberal MP for Harwich. In 1931, Pybus was one of a group of MPs who split from the Liberal Party to join Ramsay MacDonald’s National Government. He served as Minister of Transport from 1931-3, and then resigned from the government to devote more time to his private affairs. In 1934 he was made a knight banneret in the New Year honours list. He died probably in London on 23 October 1935.
Pybus’s contribution to the Rowntree conferences in 1921 is a curious one. He was engaged in a debate with David Stewart on the question of whether democratic control of industry was possible, with Pybus arguing that it was not. His reasons are that the present system of business organisation would not permit it, nor would democratic control offer any degree of assurance to financiers and owners of share capital, and a fully communist system of worker control would lead to a collapse in exports and the ruin of the economy.
Major works
Labour: Its Output and Reward, 1920.
Bibliography
‘Percy John Pybus’, Grace’s Guide, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Percy_John_Pybus
Who Was Who.
Original Source
‘To what extent is democratic control of industry possible? The employers’ standpoint’, 13 February 1921, York