James Hughes-hallett
Chairman of Swire who saw the group through the Asian financial crisis and the SARS epidemic
JAMES HUGHES-HALLETT, who has died aged 70, was the first non-family chairman of John Swire & Sons, the Far Eastern trading, transport and real estate group; a man of deep cultural passions, he was also chairman of the Courtauld Institute and the Esmée Fairbairn grant-giving charity.
Hughes-hallett spent the bulk of his career with the Swire group in Asia and Australia, culminating in his appointment in 1998 as taipan (resident director) in Hong Kong – where he was also chairman of Cathay Pacific, the airline of which Swire is the major owner.
His patience, diplomacy and penetrating intellect saw the group through a series of difficult episodes, including the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the impact of Hong Kong’s 2003 SARS epidemic.
Those qualities also won him the trust of the Swire family as the right person to take the chair of their London holding company, John Swire & Sons, when Sir Adrian Swire retired from that role for a second time in 2005.
The Swire corporate model of arm’s-length stewardship from London over a vast portfolio of operations around the world continued to prove its resilience under Hughes-hallett’s calming hand.
On his return to England he also joined the trustees of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, one of the UK’S largest charitable funds, which had been created in 1961 by his greatuncle, the City financier Ian Fairbairn.
As chairman from 2013, Hugheshallett brought a new focus to its distribution of some £40 million a year in support of arts, environmental and social projects, particularly for the benefit of young people.
At the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he was chairman from 2012 to 2017, he presided over a period of expansion and accolades for the school’s teaching and research. A generous personal benefactor, he was also a frequent attender of Courtauld lectures and seminars, and spoke of “this physically beautiful place, specialist and eclectic, sometimes eccentric, sometimes iconoclastic and always inspiring”.
James Wyndham John Hugheshallett was born on September 10 1949, the eldest child of Michael Hughes-hallett, and his wife Penelope, née Fairbairn. Michael was the land agent of the Cornbury Park estate in Oxfordshire, and the childhood home of James and his siblings – Lucy, who became an author and journalist, and Thomas (now Sir Thomas) who became a leading figure in medical charities – was a remote estate house in the Wychwood Forest.
A teenaged dandy in velvet jacket and high-heeled green boots, James was also a fearless horseman, riding to hounds and in point-to-points. He was educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, where he read English, and went on to qualify as a chartered accountant with the city firm of Dixon, Wilson, Tubbs and Gillett before joining Swires’ elite management cadre, known as “House Staff ”, in 1976.
Specialising on the shipping side of the business, he served in Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong before promotion to managing director in Australia in 1989 and director of John Swire & Sons in Hong Kong in 1993.
He retired as chairman in London in 2014, to be succeeded by Sir Adrian’s nephew, Barnaby Swire. In later years, he was a non-executive director of HSBC and chairman of Clarkson, the shipping services group. He was also a trustee of Dulwich Picture Gallery, deputy chairman of the Attingham Trust (which runs courses in fine arts and architectural heritage), a founder of the charity Art History in Schools, and a governor of SOAS.
Hughes-hallett combined a roistering reputation in his expat bachelor days and a lively sense of humour with a profound fascination for Asian cultures and a lifelong appetite for learning. A discerning collector of Chinese and Japanese art, he spent his weekends during a posting to the funless city of Osaka learning from Japanese masters how to make pots, touring remote regions on his motorbike and walking to hilltop monasteries.
When cancer confined him to his London flat in recent months, he set himself to studying classical literature, beginning by comparing two translations of the Odyssey. His sister Lucy recalled “a subtle-minded autodidact who sought out learning for the pleasure it gave him, and … whose refined aesthetic taste and compendious knowledge brought him joy”.
He was appointed CMG in 2012 and held the Silver Bauhinia Star of Hong Kong. He married first, in 1991, Lizabeth Hall; the marriage was dissolved and he married secondly, in 2016, Katrina Repka, who survives him with two daughters of the first marriage, and a stepdaughter.
James Hughes-hallett, born September 10 1949, died October 10 2019