Hugh Mellor
Conservationist who oversaw the conversion of Victorian reservoirs into the London Wetland Centre
HUGH MELLOR, who has died aged 83, was a businessman and conservationist who played a leading role in the development of one of Britain’s outstanding wildlife reserves. Mellor’s advocacy of conservation was not of the noisy, tub-thumping variety: by nature a gentle character, he had the gift of combining the pursuit of grand ambitions with judiciousness and practicality.
It was a quality he brought to his role as chairman of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, founded at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, in 1946 by the naturalist Sir Peter Scott. Slimbridge became the model for other wetland wildlife reserves run by the WWT, including the London Wetland Centre at Barnes, which opened in 2000 – the first urban project of its kind in Britain.
As chairman of the WWT from 1997 to 2003, Mellor showed great skill in steering this scheme to completion. Although the Trust was not in the best of financial health when he took over, he gave the go-ahead for the project and presided with a steady hand throughout its development.
The total cost was £17 million. Berkeley Homes agreed to contribute £11 million, Thames Water £1 million. The Trust managed to raise the remaining £5 million, at the same time as having to secure a similar sum for a development at Slimbridge.
The London Wetland Centre is a remarkable achievement: occupying more than 100 acres in the southwest of the city, it was formerly the site of four Victorian concrete reservoirs, now transformed into a rich wetland habitat frequented by a wide variety of water birds, among them shoveler, pintail, gadwall and grebe.
It now welcomes some 250,000 visitors annually, including 20,000 schoolchildren. Mellor was always adamant that children from urban and deprived areas should have access to nature.
By the time Mellor took over his role at the WWT his interest in wildlife was long-established. His 180-acre farm in Buckinghamshire, his home since the early 1970s, was run as a conservation project, much of it turned over to grass and woodland. Pesticides and artificial fertilisers were banned.
Hedgerows were constructed and old ones restored; ponds and lakes were dug out to encourage snipe and woodcock, geese, teal and mallard. He was particularly proud to have created a habitat for the rare black hairstreak butterfly.
From 1969 Mellor also had a share in the 12,000-acre Fealar estate in Perthshire, which had been bought from the Duke of Atholl by the former Conservative MP Sir Alexander Spearman. In partnership with the Spearman family and the landowner and conservationist James Teacher, Mellor managed Fealar to provide a favourable environment for all the flora and fauna.
Hugh Salusbury Mellor was born in London on March 16 1936 to Harry Mellor and his wife Diana (née Wyld). His father was killed early in the war, and in 1951 Diana married Wilfred (later Sir Wilfred) Hill-wood, a noted first-class cricketer and financier.
Growing up in London with his sister Bridget, Hugh went from Harrow to Christ Church, Oxford, where he read History, before fulfilling National Service duties in the Coldstream Guards, serving mainly in Germany. A formidable athlete who broke a number of track records at Harrow, he continued to compete in the 400 yards in the Army, notching up a time that qualified him for the Olympics. Injury, however, ended his running career.
Having begun his working life with Morgan Grenfell, he soon moved to the major agricultural company Dalgety, of which he would become international director. In particular, he was charged with reviving Dalgety’s “stock and station agency” in Australia, which provided advice and support for the country’s wool producers. In 1966 he married Sally Wawn, a gifted Australian concert pianist who studied under Claudio Arrau and Rafael Da Silva.
During one working trip to Australia he was fortunate to survive when the company jet in which he was travelling clipped a hillside in New South Wales and crashed, killing the pilot. Mellor emerged unscathed and managed to pull injured survivors from the wreckage before walking across country to summon help.
He retired from Dalgety in 1995, having overseen the takeover of the animal feed company Spillers in 1978-79.
Mellor’s particular passion was birdlife, and he seldom ventured anywhere without his field glasses. He served as honorary treasurer of the RSPB for 14 years, and for 10 years as a forward-looking chairman of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, helping to secure a number of new sites for the protection of the local flora and fauna.
In 2005 he was appointed CBE for his work in conservation, and in 2013 received the Christopher Cadbury Medal, an annual award presented to a member of a Wildlife Trust.
After leaving Dalgety, he served as chairman of the Meghraj bank, and took on various non-executive directorships, including at the Bank of New Zealand, Australian Mutual Provident and Burmah Castrol.
Hugh Mellor is survived by his wife Sally and their daughter and two sons.