Driving force behind Low & Bonar, Bill Jones, 93

A Dundee businessman whose company helped deliver pioneering transatlantic telephone services has died, aged 93.

William, better known as Bill, Jones ran Low & Bonar Packaging Europe from its beginnings in 1955 until his retirement as chief executive in 1988.

He played a key part in the expansion of the company from just five employees to more than 5,000, with factories in England, Canada, the US, and Africa.

During his time with the company it developed new technologies and materials.

These included the first plastics used in artificial grass sports pitches, which were made by Bonar UYarns.

In the 1960s and 1970s the company also produced the packaging for a range of common household goods such as Rich Tea and Digestive biscuits.

Under his leadership the firm’s reputation for innovation helped it secure work for the first transatlantic telephone cables.

These were initially laid in 1955 and 1956 over more than 2,000 miles of ocean bed between Scotland and Newfoundland in specially-designed waterproof casings that could resist the pressures of water at depths of up to 10,000 feet.

Crucially, the firm was able to supply new plastic materials for waterproof coatings of the copper cable and also the traditional jute yarn used as a protective sheathing.

Mr Jones was born in Liverpool and served as a firewatcher during the Second World War.

He completed his national service as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and worked for his father’s printing business in Liverpool after demob.

Mr Jones was then recruited by Sir Herbert Bonar to be general manager of the Bonar Group’s new plastic packaging arm, which was run out of its Morgan Street factory.

Low & Bonar began moving into plastics as a response to the decline of the jute industry.

Away from work, Mr Jones was a keen climber and hillwalker.

He was also passionate about rugby and was a Midlands referee.

He took up curling and was a keen amateur film-maker.

In retirement he bagged all of Scotland’ s Munro sand adventuretravelled to the Arctic and Antarctic with wife Dorothy while also enjoying expeditions to the Alps and taking up cross-country skiing.

He was an active member of the hillwalking and climbing Grampian and Scottish Mountaineering clubs, doing much of their administrative and organisational work.

The Grampian Club made him their honorary president in 2013.

In latter years he donated generously to charity, particularly environmental organisations due to his concerns about how the plastics industry was contributing to global pollution.

He is survived by sons Peter and Michael, three grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Mr Jones ran Low & Bonar Packaging Europe from its beginnings in 1955 until his retirement as CEO in 1988.