George Harriman
Sir George William Harriman CBE was a leading figure in the British motor industry in the 1960s.
Harriman was born in Coventry. His father, also called George Harriman, was employed as a "Motor Machinist".
He began his career in 1923 as an apprentice at the Hotchkiss works of Morris Motors Limited. He was promoted repeatedly, becoming assistant works superintendent with Morris in 1938. Two years later he switched to Austin in 1940, and by 1945 had become a director of that company. There followed a succession of promotions through the management of BMC, a car manufacturing conglomerate created from the merger in 1952 of the Morris and Austin businesses.
In the meantime, he had married Vera G Reynolds in 1936 who predeceased him dying in 1954 aged just 42. Three years later his sister married her brother.
He was appointed Chairman and Managing Director of the British Motor Corporation in 1961, having in principal taken over many of the responsibilities involved some years earlier from Leonard Lord.
In addition to his business career, he was a noted rugby football player, captaining the Coventry and Warwickshire teams in the 1930s, and playing briefly for the England team in 1933.
Harriman was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1943 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1951, and was knighted in 1965.
