Left to right: Bertha Baker, Philip Barton Baker, Amy Elizabeth Baker, Barton Dell Baker and Olive Elizabeth Baker - c1912. Image taken from Bertha's book Bad Aunt Bertha
Full name: Barton Dell Baker.
Date of birth: Saturday, 11th June, 1904.
Birthplace: Ravenswood, 16 Manstone Road, Brondesbury, London, England.
Date of death: Tuesday 30th October, 1956 (aged 52 years).
Cause of death: Stroke.
Place of death: The Westminster Hospital, Westminster, London, England.
Will: Effects £10,641 10s. 5d. Executors: Judith Baker (wife), Alan Ivor Baker (Company Chairman) and William Moncur Mitchell (Solicitor).
Judith Emily Margaret Eileen Hamilton Harris (was Baker) (née Moore) (1907-1990). |
Date of marriage: 1929.
Place of marriage: Marylebone, Middlesex, England.
1904-1907 - 16 Manstone Road, Brondesbury, London, England.
1908-1916 - "Braeside", 38 Platt's Lane, Childs Hill, London, England.
1920-1931 - 63, The Ridgeway, Hendon, England.
1937-1956 - 312 Longthorpe, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, England.
1918 - Leighton Park School, Shinfield Road, Reading, Berkshire, England.
1919-1922 - Blundells School, Tiverton, Devon, England.
1923-1926 - University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.
3rd Class Mechanical Sciences Tripos 1926.
Degree: B.A. - 1926.
Degree: M.A. (Cantab.). - 1930.
1926-1956 - Baker Perkins Ltd, Westwood Works, Westfield Road, Peterborough, England.
The company has its origins with Jacob Perkins (1766–1849), an American inventor who moved to England in 1819 from Massachusetts. His son, Angier March Perkins (1799–1881), founded the firm of A. M. Perkins & Co Ltd to manufacture his inventions. In 1893, the company merged with Werner & Pfleiderer (London) to form Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd. In 1904, WP&P moved their manufacturing from London to Westwood, Peterborough. In 1914, owing to pressure over its German-sounding name, the company became Perkins Engineers Ltd. During World War I, the company produced a range of armaments including Ricardo engines for Mark IV tanks. In 1918 it merged with Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd of Willesden to become Joseph Baker Sons & Perkins Ltd and in 1923, Baker Perkins Ltd. - Wikipedia
Barton was the grandson of Joseph Baker, founder of Joseph Baker & Sons. His father, Philip Barton Baker, was for many years in charge of the commercial direction of the firm.
1926-1930 - Apprenticeship
1 1/2 years investigating business methods in factory; 2 1/4 years training as engineer and oven builder on Outdoor Construction Staff.
In 1927, halfway between the merger of the two companies and the "Great Trek" from Willesden to Peterborough, F.C. Ihlee agreed that Barton Baker (son of Philip Baker) should carry out - at the age of 23 - an in-depth review of the whole of the newly-merged business. The report, commissioned by F.C. Ihlee, aimed also to put under critical review the actual operation of the organisation as compared with how the management intended that it function The investigation took approximately 18 months and was published in 1928 as a nearly 300 page report entitled "Baker Perkins Dissected". In a Foreword to the work, F.C. Ihlee observed:
"The work undertaken by Mr. B.D. Baker took its origin in the desire to ascertain by practical trial how far the intelligent aspirant to the more advanced openings in a business might be assisted to qualify in a short time by an unrestricted study of the business as a whole. Incidentally it was hoped that these studies would tend to disclose the particular employment for which talents possessed by the student cause him to be especially adapted and that the considerable time and labour employed in their crystallisation in the form of a written record might provide a useful contribution to the business education of others in view of the impracticability of that complete and leisured tuition which in the abstract would be so desirable for all beginners." - Taken from http://www.westwoodworks.net/HowItWas/TheWestwoodWorksCulture/index.htm
1930-1931
5 months in Trinidad supervising installation and machinery in new bakery. 1 year in U.S.A. investigating production methods in engineering works including Baker Perkins Inc. Co. in Michigan.
1931
Superintendent of outdoor department, Baker Perkins Ltd, Westwood Works, Peterborough supervising outdoor erection and service work, total personeel of Department 321.
1935
Appointed Director. Solely responsible to Board via Chairman of Board of Management. Responsible for employment of labour, internal and external methods adopted and other executive duties in ? Department.
Post WW2
1945 - Chairman of Board of Management.
After the trials and tribulations of WW2, during which all parts of the Company pulled together to make the great achievements described in Westwood Works in WW2 , the return to peace brought a quite exceptionally heavy demand from our traditional customers who, to a large extent throughout the war, had had to make do with their pre-war equipment. This demand created an unusual degree of confidence in activity levels and profitability in the years immediately ahead and, on the initiative of Barton Baker, Chairman of the Board of Management, the Directors decided to start a Profit Sharing Scheme. The objects of the scheme were:
"To try to make all who work at Baker Perkins feel part of the same enterprise: to create a greater interest in their work by giving employees the opportunity to participate in the profits of the Company in the years of real prosperity and to continue and extend the spirit of co-partnership which has existed in the past." - Taken from http://www.westwoodworks.net/HowItWas/TheProfitSharingScheme/index.htm
1947 - Vice-Chairman.
Another severe loss to the board occurred in 1956 with the sudden death of Barton Baker, another grandson of the founder, a member of the Board of Management since 1936 and its chairman since 1945. He had reconstructed the Outdoor Department and had been heavily involved in the setting up of the profit sharing and pensions schemes. - Taken from http://www.bphs.net/GroupFacilities/B/BPLtd/index.htm
1940-1944 - Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve
1940 - Temporary Sub-Lieutenant.
1941-1942 - Temporary Lieutenant.
"During the war he served in the Royal Navy as an engineer officer, being mentioned in despatches after his destroyer had rammed an enemy submarine. He was released in 1944 on the grounds of health." - Peterborough Advertiser - 2nd November 1956
"SUBJECT to his wife's agreement, it was the wish of Mr. Barton Dell Baker, vice-chairman of Baker Perkins, Ltd., that his body should be handed over to the Medical School at Cambridge.
This wish was expressed in his will, published last week, in which he left £10,641 10s. 5d. gross - £3,006 5s. 10d. net value. Duty paid was £128. Mr. Baker died on October 30.
He left an annuity of £25 to Ellen J. Clements, of West End, Witney, Oxon, in the event of both his mother and himself having predeceased her, his gold watch, which belonged to his grandfather and father, to his son Michael, £50 each to Allan I. Baker and William M. Mitchell; £500, in priority to all other bequests, and a third of the residue to his wife, and the remainder upon trust for her for life and then his issue.
Probate has been granted to his widow, Mrs. Judith E. M. E. H. Baker of the same address, Allan I. Baker, company chairman, of 29 Westwood Park Road, Peterborough, and William M. Mitchell, solicitor, of 11 Old Jewry, London, E.C.2." - Peterborough Advertiser - 28th December 1956
Philip John Noel-Baker
"Philip John Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker, PC (1 November 1889 – 8 October 1982), born Philip John Baker, was a British politician, diplomat, academic, amateur athlete, and renowned campaigner for disarmament. He carried the British team flag and won a silver medal for the 1500m at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.
Noel-Baker is the only person to have won an Olympic medal and received a Nobel Prize. He was a Labour member of parliament from 1929 to 1931 and from 1936 to 1970, serving in several ministerial offices and the cabinet. He became a life peer in 1977." - Wikipedia
Bertha Gwendoline Wright (was Penrose) (née Baker)
Bertha (Barton's half-sister) was married to Alexander "Alec" Peckover Penrose between 1919 and the late 1920s.
Alec's father, James Doyle Penrose, was an Irish painter.
Alec's grandfather was Alexander Peckover, 1st Baron Peckover, who was an English Quaker banker, philanthropist and collector of ancient manuscripts.
"During her first marriage she had a well documented affair with author Clive Bell, a prominent member of the infamous Bloomsbury Set, and who was married to the Bloomsbury painter Vanessa Bell (sister to author Virginia Woolf). Bertha divorced Alexander in the late 1920s and then married Ralph." - A Collection of Miniature Treasures Made by Bertha (Penrose) and Ralph Wright by Celia Thomas of KT Miniatures
"I suppose one of the outstanding men who worked hard on the Outdoor Engineers’ morale (as indeed he did on many other departments’) was Barton Baker, who died some years ago. He filled various positions – Manager of Outdoor – Manager of Technical Departments – Director – Member of Board of Management, and when he died was Chairman of that body. Barton was a good engineer and a very good administrator. He was responsible for the reconstruction of the Outdoor Department and Drawing Offices in the early thirties and was also the principal architect of Profit Sharing, Prosperity Bonus and the Pension Scheme. He worked hard and played hard. I speak of Barton with great affection – we were good friends, although in many things we differed widely in our opinions and quarrelled violently. We had, however, a common denominator – the welfare and advancement of Baker Perkins. Barton was a great Baker and sadly missed when he died." - Claude Dumbleton - 1963 - taken from http://www.bphs.net/accounts/cdumbleton.htm
Page updated 26th March, 2021.
