Eric Yarrow


Sir Eric Grant Yarrow, 3rd Baronet, was a British businessman.
After serving during World War II as a major in the Royal Engineers, he joined the family business Yarrows of Scotstoun, Glasgow in 1946, becoming managing director when aged 38 and chairman, following the death of his father, Harold Yarrow, in 1962 when Sir Eric was aged 42. Later he became President of Yarrow plc until 1987, and was a non-executive director of the Clydesdale Bank from 1962 to 1985 then chairman until 1991.
He is credited with steering successfully the distinguished Glasgow shipbuilding company through some of the most turbulent periods in the British shipbuilding industry's history and with enhancing the name and status of the family firm when many shipyards were failing. Critical to the success was maintaining and developing the relationship with the Royal Navy, where a Yarrow ship was traditionally regarded as a fast ship.. Sir Eric went to great efforts to maintain and develop this reputation, leading to a stream of orders from the Royal Navy and overseas navies when new business was thin on the ground. As a result, Yarrows became a prime contractor on the Type 21, Type 22, Type 23 and Type 45 frigate programmes for the Royal Navy and remains involved in the Type 26 programme alongside the Govan yard.
Yarrow was appointed a Vice-President of RINA in 1972 as well as serving as prime warden of the Shipwrights' Company, among other charitable activities.
Appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for military service in 1946, he succeeded as 3rd baronet in 1962, upon the death of his father, Sir Harold Yarrow Bt GBE, later becoming a Deputy Lieutenant for Renfrewshire in 1970. He is succeeded to the title by his eldest grandson, Ross.

Business career

The relationship with the Royal Navy was key to success of Yarrows, and during his career Sir Eric worked with 12 successive Controllers, the Navy's professional head of procurement. Sir Eric also believed in the need to travel in order to win business, believing that sitting in his office was unlikely to lead to orders. The countries he visited successfully included Thailand, Malaysia, India, Portugal, Iran, Ghana, Peru, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Chile and South Africa.  
Throughout his career at Scotstoun, Sir Eric was in favour of modernisation and this led, amongst other developments, to the building of the covered berth, which enabled indoor ship construction in comfort during long, cold, dark Scottish winters. The berth was enlarged to allow building of two Type 22 frigates under cover. Neighbouring yards were acquired to lengthen the waterfront and provide additional facilities, the price of one being negotiated on the golf course with Sir John Hunter. Similar far-sighted steps led to the establishment of the Yarrow Admiralty Research Department as a separate subsidiary, an organisation which worked closely on engineering and design with the Royal Navy and other navies and shipping companies worldwide. This helped strengthen links with the RN, and Sir Eric deserves credit for building on the existing foundations for the exceptional partnership between the Navy and Yarrows which continues to this day. Most critically for the firm, the long-term investment and manufacturing credentials ensured that when the number of warship yards was dramatically reduced by the Navy in the 1970s, Yarrows was chosen as one of mainstream contractors alongside Swan Hunter, Vosper and Cammell Laird. 5 out of 8 Type 21s, 10 out of 14 Type 22s, 12 out of 16 Type 23s and all the Type 45s were built at Scotstoun, demonstrating the firm's dominance in the market for medium-sized RN surface vessels. Sir Eric also took pride in a good working relationship with the trade unions and took time to ensure that employees were informed of successes and failures.
Sir Eric was consistently against the concept of amalgamation of the yards on the Clyde, and turned down the invitation from the Minister of Technology, Tony Benn, to chair Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. Benn described him as a coward when he refused the role, a decision Sir Eric always regarded the best of his business life. UCS acquired a 51% stake in Yarrow Shipbuilders Ltd, the shipbuilding subsidiary, when it became clear that the Royal Navy was likely to come under political pressure to exclude Yarrows from naval orders if the firm was not part of the UCS Group. A shotgun was in effect put at Sir Eric's head. As UCS lurched from crisis to crisis, in 1970 Sir Eric negotiated the extraction of YSL from UCS, thereby saving the shipbuilding name and commercial viability of Yarrows when UCS went into receivership in 1971. Had he been chairman of UCS, this would not have been possible and Yarrows would likely have fallen into receivership.
The creation of a group holding company and a number of subsidiaries ensured that even if the shipbuilding entity was interfered with politically, other parts of the group could not be affected, which proved a wise move as it was not long before politics intervened again. The shipbuilding subsidiary of Yarrow and Co was nationalised in 1977 under the terms of the highly contested Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act. The successful and profitable yards were all swept into the net. There was a feeling in the firm that it was provocative that the last naval ship before nationalisation was launched by Audrey Callaghan, wife of the then Prime Minister, but with a certain amount of wry amusement in the family that the ship she named was.  
Sir Eric always felt the compensation terms were grossly inadequate, as they were based on profitability and the share price in 1972, when both profits and the stock market were depressed. He used to say that no one likes to be robbed, whether one's home, one's wallet or one's business. When in opposition the Conservative Party had fiercely challenged the enacted compensation terms, but lost interest in improving the terms once back in power. Sir Eric fought with other firms through to the European Court of Human Rights for improved compensation but the Court found in the Government's favour. Subsequently, Yarrow Shipbuilders was privatised by Thatcher from British Shipbuilders in a sale to GEC Marconi and the original shipbuilding company now forms part of the defence interests of BAE systems, continuing to operate from the 1906 site on the Clyde, and currently partly responsible for the building of Type 26 destroyers, the next generation frigate for the Royal Navy. The firm also built some of the modules for the new Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers.
What is less well known about the Yarrow business was that it had a very successful marine and land boiler section, something which stemmed from Alfred Yarrow's inventive genius, and which provided a counterweight to the dependence on naval ships, and when business was lean on the shipbuilding side. A number of technical advances led to more power being produced from a given size of boiler, and this proved important in terms of the power to weight ratio of boilers, essential in small vessels with cramped engine room space.  Sir Eric was equally interested in sales on the land side, and Yarrow boilers were widely used in power generation installations in the UK, and also in many countries overseas. Sir Eric particularly enjoyed his trips to South Africa, which somehow coincided with the depths of the Scottish Winter. There were also numerous sales of marine boilers to ships built by other shipbuilding companies, Yarrow boilers providing power for Cunard's Queen Mary in 1936 and the Queen Elizabeth in 1940.
One year after nationalisation Sir Eric left the shipyard to focus on the parent company. In the early 1980s he fought off a bid for the Company from the Weir Group. After he was 65 he retired from the parent company,  which consisted then mainly of YARD. He then became a non-executive Chairman of the Clydesdale Bank,  a post he greatly enjoyed. During the time he visited all 270 branches of the Bank.
He remembered being summoned to the chairman's house in Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire to be asked to join the "best bank board in Scotland".  Subsequently, he had to have an introductory meeting with the chief executive. At this meeting the conversation went as follows: “You must remember to be discreet and not share confidences with ladies at cocktail parties. The chairman does not like people being late for board meetings. The chairman does not like people leaving the board meetings early.  Nor does he like it if directors say very much in between.”

Philanthropic and other interests

At home Sir Eric held appointments with a number of shipbuilding and other engineering organisations He was Deacon of the Incorporation of Hammermen in the Trades House in Glasgow in 1961, Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights in 1970, and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1975. He also followed the family tradition of support for the Princess Louise Hospital at Erskine, acting as chairman of the board of governors for several years, and personally supporting many functions and fund-raising activities. He also took an active interest in the Burma Star Association, becoming president of the Scottish Branch in 1990.

Personal life

On 28 April 1951, he married Rosemary Ann Young. They had one child, a son, Richard Grant Yarrow, who by his wife Sheila Allison had two sons, including Ross Yarrow, who inherited his title.
Yarrow married second, on 23 May 1959, Annette Elizabeth Françoise Steven, by whom he had three more sons – Norman, Peter and David Yarrow. The couple divorced in 1975.
Sir Eric lived in Renfrewshire with his third wife, Caroline Botting, née Masters, whom he married in 1982. He died on 22 September 2018 at the age of 98.

Honours