It is with regret that we inform of the death of Brian Hennessy, former Group Managing Director of Bowater Containers, who has died aged 86.
Hennessy came from humble beginnings, his father was an Irish immigrant miner in South Wales up until the General Strike, when he left Wales to train as a bricklayer in London. He grew up in a council house in Kingston, and married his childhood sweetheart Mary when he was nineteen.
He studied organic chemistry at night school and worked as a research chemist in the late 1950s, researching new uses for plastics. He moved into packaging, as a development chemist at Metal Box in Alperton, before being appointed Technical Manager of Metal Box Flexible Packaging in Speke, Liverpool, relocating his family. He moved again to work briefly for Smith Brothers in Whitehaven, then became General Manager of Bowater Flexible Packaging in Gillingham, aged 36.
In 1978, at the age of 43, he was appointed Group Operations Director of Bowater Containers, based at their Head Office in Stevenage. He went on to become Group Managing Director four years later. At the time, Bowater Containers was the second biggest corrugated business in the UK, after Reed; they also had two plants in Belgium. Hennessy was responsible for creating the first fully integrated pre-print plant in England at Darlington, and commissioned and opened Bowater’s Heavy Duty plant, installing the UK’s first Mitsubishi corrugator at Hinckley.
Bowater Corporation was a huge and old-fashioned British Institution, and most of their senior executives were ex-public school and Oxbridge, so for a council house kid, Hennessy’s rise to the top of one of their divisions was unprecedented.
He became Chair of the BFPA (British Fibreboard Packaging Association, forerunner of the CPA) in 1983, and he hosted the Annual Conference at the Don Carlos Hotel in Marbella, where the photo was taken.
Brian enjoying downtime at BFPA conference in Marbella – 1983.
The closing lines of his speech to conference were, “Always remember, your first line of loyalty is to the people who report to you, not the person to whom you report. Knowing that is what separates leaders from managers.”
Sadly, his youngest child Joanne died from cancer at 34, and he retired early to care for his first wife Mary when she too became terminally ill. Early retirement caused him to start to take golf seriously. He became Club Captain at his local club, where he met his second wife Joan, a former Ladies Captain, who survives him, as do his older children, Jacqueline and Kevin, the former Managing Director of Jardin, and his four grandchildren.
The funeral is taking place on 14th September, and the family have asked for no flowers, but any charitable donations in his memory can be made to the British Heart Foundation, and sent to the Funeral Director – Seaton Leng, 59a Bondgate, Darlington DL3 7JR.
The service is being made available by video link, as follows:
- Website https://watch.obitus.com
- Username vudu2374
- Password 069205
- Service Date Tuesday 14th September
- Service Time 2:00pm
- Service Viewing Time 1:55pm – 2:35pm
