:.OBITUARY -

SIR KENNETH

LEE

Former president

of Tootal

Sir Kenneth Lee, the first baronet, former president and chairman of Tootal, the Manchester textile group, died on Wednesday at the age of 88. During the Second World War he was Director-General of Raw Material Controls at the Ministry of Supply. For a brief time (1939-40) he was Director-General and Secretary at the Ministry of Information. Lee became a member of Lord Willingdon's Trade Mission to South America in 1940. and the following year was appointed a representative of the Board of Trade in the United States. Lee came of a Lancashire family long connected with the cotton industry, and was educated at Uppingham.

During the First World War, he was a member of the Imperial Shipping Committee and was also on the Advisory Committee to the Department of Overseas Trade, the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, and the-Inter-Departmnental Committee on Patents. He served with Sir Herbert Samuel and others on the Commission appointed in 1925 to inquire into the state of the coal industrY. He became one of the recognized leaders of his own industry, and was at one time chairman of the British Cotton Research Association. Lee made the products of his cornpany household names throughout the world, and was a pioneer in introducing scientific research into the textile industry. The invention of the crease-resisting process was his inspiration. Hc adopted co-partnership in 1920, set up schonl continuation classes during working hours, used the stop-watch and work-analysis to secure a fawr and optimum distribution of workloads, and got graduates to work in his factories. Lee was knighted in 1934, and made a baronet in 1941.