John Langham
Industrialist whose enterprises prospered on land and at sea
JOHN LANGHAM, who has died aged 93, was a successful marine industrialist and an expansive Dorset landowner.
Langham Industries, the company he founded when he was in his mid-fifties after a long career in marine engineering, began as a designer and manufacturer of ships’ propellers. It embarked on a bold expansion in 1996 with the purchase of the 150-year-old naval base at Portland in Dorset when it fell to defence spending cuts; the sheltered deep-water harbour was developed into a successful commercial port accommodating cruise ships and cargo vessels as well as continuing to provide services for the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxilliary. It also served as a sailing venue in the 2012 Olympics.
John Michael Langham was born in Lincolnshire on January 12 1924. His father was a farmer, but lost his farm in the depression and moved the family to Dorset, where he found work selling animal medicines. John was educated at Bedford School and won a scholarship to Queens’ College, Cambridge, to read Mechanical Sciences; a high-spirited undergraduate, he enjoyed rugby and rowing and took a “gentleman’s” Third.
In 1944 he joined the Navy, training at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast before serving as a sub-lieutenant in the cruiser Mauritius. On demobilisation he found a job with J Stone & Co of Deptford, then the world’s largest maker of ship propellers.
In due course the company became part of a wider conglomerate, Stone Platt, and Langham rose to be managing director of its marine division; he was appointed CBE for services to exports in 1976. But by the end of that decade Stone Platt was in financial trouble, and Langham took the gamble in 1980 of borrowing as much money as he could to buy out the propeller business and create Langham Industries.
Two more former Stone companies, a light alloy foundry and a manufacturer of aircraft rivets, were added to the Langham portfolio in 1982 and other acquisitions followed. In later years the group expanded its marine service interests as far afield as Singapore and Namibia.
It was also in 1980 that Langham bought Bingham’s Melcombe, a Dorset agricultural estate with a Grade I listed manor house dating from 1554, a 14th century gatehouse and gardens laid out by the architect Geoffrey Jellicoe. Langham applied his energies with equal passion to building his business empire and running his estate – though his family sometimes worried that he would spend longer supervising the raking of the gravel on the drive than on closing the next deal.
He added neighbouring parcels of land whenever they came up for sale, creating an agricultural enterprise of some 2,500 acres – on which one of his ventures was the planting of a small vineyard. Chalk soil, a south-facing aspect and a favourable micro-climate provided an excellent terroir for chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes, and in recent years John’s son, Justin, developed the winery to produce a successful range of English sparkling wines.
Langham was a shrewd entrepreneur with firmly held beliefs, but there was also a softer side to him. He quietly helped many people in difficulties, and supported numerous charitable causes. He also loved animals, and caused local controversy by banning hunting on his estate. His political views evolved from supporting Harold Wilson’s Labour government in the Sixties to becoming a keen Thatcherite in the Eighties and eventually an avid supporter of the Referendum Party and Ukip, festooning his manorial gates with purple and yellow placards at election time.
He married Betty Morley in 1949. She survives him with their two sons and a daughter. Their elder son Christopher took over the running of Langham Industries.