Midland boss who refused to retire dies at age of 99 Tributes to much-loved chairman of builders’ merchants who worked right up until the end
ONE of the country’s longestserving businessmen – who ran his family firm from the 1950s – has died aged 99.
Ken Smith was chairman of Shirley-based EH Smith Builders’ Merchants, for which he dedicated 80 years of his life.
He chose to stay active in the business long after his peers were drawing their pensions, claiming “retirement is death” in a Birmingham Post interview in 2013.
His efforts were recognised in 2014 when he was handed a lifetime achievement award at the Post Business Awards. Mr Smith died on Tuesday. EH Smith’s chief executive John Parker said: “Ken was a remarkable and much-loved figurehead who defined EH Smith’s first century in business. I know I speak for every member of our staff, as well as our family, when I say how much he will be missed.
“One of Ken’s greatest triumphs, and his most important legacy, was his determination to secure the longterm future of EH Smith through its people – both by engaging many of the third and fourth generations of the Smith family in the business and by encouraging a positive, supportive business culture in which every employee could thrive.”
Kenneth Howard Avery Smith was born in July 1918 and joined the family firm after leaving King Edward’s School, then based in Birmingham’s New Street, in 1937.
He took charge of EH Smith in 1959 following the death of his father Ernest Howard Smith, known as Howard. He had founded the business in 1922, transforming a company supplying jute sacks and bulkbagged cement from a railway sidings in Small Heath into a major builders’ merchants.
During those early years Smith senior would take the young Ken with him on delivery rounds in Birmingham – initially on a horse and cart and then riding pillion a motor- bike. Mr Smith would often regale visitors to EH Smith’s head office with stories of the firm’s early history, seeing off several recessions and surviving the Second World War when bombs fell on their Coventry and London depots.
Under father and son’s leadership in the 1940s and 50s, the company developed its skills in sourcing and selling bricks, a specialism that endures today.
In the second half of the 20th century the firm became a pivotal supplier in major civil engineering projects, particularly the development of some of the UK’s motorways including the M6 and the M1.
EH Smith, which still employs several members of the extended Smith family, now turns over £130 million a year, with 15 bases across the Midlands and the South East.
Throughout his working life, there was always one particular delivery Mr Smith received personally – the firm’s trucks. He would research and buy each truck in the fleet and was always there to take delivery of them, something he continued to do until recently.
His vintage Aston Martin could be seen in the firm’s head office car park most days and he was a wellrespected and much loved figure among the company’s 450 staff, personally delivering the Christmas payslips.
Kenneth Smith died on November 28, aged 99. He was married to Connie Walton but they had no children and she died in 1988. He is survived by his nieces Jenny and Hazel, nephew Michael and their families.