James Benson
Served in wartime midget submarines then in advertising drove the expansion of Ogilvy & Mather
JAMES BENSON, who has died aged 93, made an international career in the advertising business after wartime service in midget submarines. Benson was successively marketing director, managing director and, from 1965, chairman of Mather & Crowther, the fourth-ranking UK advertising agency until its merger with Ogilvy, Benson & Mather of New York, to which it was already connected. He went on to be vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather International from 1971, driving its expansion by acquisition into more than 40 countries.
Jimmy Benson was a right-hand man to the legendary David Ogilvy – known as “the father of advertising” and the author of memorable campaigns for clients ranging from Shell and Rolls-royce to Schweppes and Dove soap. Benson’s role, as one observer put it, was that of “a suit among the creatives” – the reassuring presence who made partners in smaller agencies feel comfortable selling their businesses to a fast-growing conglomerate.
In 1978 Benson moved to New York to become one of a four-man executive running the firm after David Ogilvy’s semi-retirement, with responsibility for a list of major clients. He retired in 1987, two years before Ogilvy & Mather fell to an aggressive takeover bid by Martin Sorrell’s company, WPP; Sorrell was reported to have been furious to find arrangements left behind by Benson granting Ogilvy’s acquired companies rights to buy themselves out in the event of a change of ownership.
James Benson was born on July 17 1925; his father Henry, a chauffeur and gardener, was the son of a coachman descended from Cumberland farming stock; James’s mother Olive, née Hutchinson, was the daughter of a gamekeeper.
Young Jimmy was educated at Bromley County Grammar School in Kent and went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in January 1943, initially to read French and German. After two terms he was called for war service and commissioned as a midshipman RNVR; in February 1944 he volunteered for special service, without knowing what that meant. He found himself on a train to Scotland to join the Twelfth Submariner Squadron which operated midget submarines from a secret base known as Harbour HHZ – in fact Loch Cairnbawn – with its headquarters at Ardtaraig House, which had become the “stone frigate” HMS Varbel II.
Always a strong swimmer, Benson trained as a diver, learning underwater photography and the measurement of beach gradients.
Before he was 20, Benson was second-incommand of the midget submarine X23, surviving when the vessel on one occasion dived, leaving him on the outside; he then commanded XE8. The X-boats were 50ft long and had an internal diameter of just 5ft; surprisingly, Benson found that his 6ft 3in frame was no disadvantage since he never tried to stand upright, so bumped his head less frequently than his shorter colleagues. Benson transferred to the East Indies Fleet in July 1943 and served the latter part of the war in the minesweeper Gozo, first as minesweeping officer and later as first lieutenant, in operations to reestablish British command in Malaya and Singapore. Demobbed in January 1947, he returned to Cambridge to complete his degree in Economics.
He embarked on a career in the newspaper industry with the Kemsley group, owner of the Sunday Times and regional titles. He was appointed research manager in 1950, one of his projects being to investigate the possibilities of Americanstyle colour supplements. His plan for a Sunday Times colour magazine was shelved by Lord Kemsley, but was implemented, long after Benson had left to join Mather & Crowther in 1959, by the next proprietor, Lord Thomson. To support his young family, Benson co-wrote, with the former “charioteer” CET Warren, Above Us the Waves (1953), the story of attacks by chariots (two-man human torpedoes) and midget-submarines on the German battleship Tirpitz in the Norwegian fjords.
Warren researched the stories while Benson polished the draft and added vignettes from his own observations of hardy submariners.
There was little interference from the Admiralty, though Warren remarked: “Neither of us realised how dangerous it could be to write a book about living people; but except for some raised eyebrows, we have got away with it.” The book was a classic, and the 1955 film – made at Pinewood with an X-craft disassembled for interior filming, and a cast that included John Mills, John Gregson and Donald Sinden – was a box office hit.
Benson’s partnership with Warren produced more books: The Admiralty Regrets (1956) was the tale of the submarine Thetis, which sank with loss of all hands on trials in Liverpool Bay in 1939. It was refloated and renamed Thunderbolt, only to be lost in battle in 1943. Will Not We Fear (1961) was the story of Seal, the only British submarine surrendered to the Germans.
The Broken Column (1966) told of James Wilde who, having been sunk in the submarine Sahib off Italy, escaped prisonerof-war camp to join partisans and lead a guerrilla group. In 1995, Benson published Silent Unseen, a novel which also had a submarine setting.
After leaving Ogilvy, Benson ran his own consultancy and devoted great energy to the American fundraising arm of the Royal Academy Trust, which through a galaxy of wealthy patrons raised some $40 million during his tenure as founder-chairman from 1983 to 2002. He was also a trustee of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, and was appointed OBE in 2003.
James Benson married Honoria (“Ria”) Hurley in 1950. She died earlier this year, and he is survived by their daughter.
James Benson, born July 17 1925, died September 1 2018