Charles Leslie Bibby

Aug 13 2007 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

CHARLES Leslie Bibby, who has died, aged 90, not only carried a distinguished Liverpool family name that was known worldwide through shipping and agriculture, but had a high profile as a company director himself.

Better known as Leslie Bibby, he was principally associated with J Bibby & Sons, the Liverpool agriculture, animal feeds and grocery group, although his time with the company did not always run smoothly.

A great-grandson of the founder, Leslie Bibby was a director for 19 years from 1948 until his resignation in 1967. This occurred after a meeting in late May, 1967, when family differences in the boardroom were revealed over the positions that members of the controlling Bibby family should hold in the group.

His departure, aged 49, was accompanied by that of Norman Bibby, then aged 55, who had been on the board for 22 years. The chairman at that time was their cousin, Mr H Mason Bibby, who felt the board was “unduly weighted with whole-time executives who tended to make themselves a management committee – in-grown in their attitudes and too lacking in knowledge of the outside business world for our present and future needs”.

While publicly accepting the constitution and board changes, Leslie Bibby remained convinced that a board with substantial family representation had unique advantages. He regarded the family character and tradition as a very tangible asset to shareholders and employees.

Some eight months after this upset, Leslie Bibby became assistant managing director and later joint MD of Liverpool Central Oil Co and managing director of Oriel Foods.

However, his fortunes in the family business were to take a dramatic up-turn. In spite of the top-level policy disagreements at J Bibby & Sons, he returned, vindicated, to the board as a non-executive director, seven years later, in September, 1974. He was welcomed back by chairman Ben Bibby, who said: “Many of those recommendations he (Leslie) had made are now part of Bibby policy.”

Leslie Bibby retired from J Bibby & Sons, in May, 1982. He was married to Margaret and had three children, Rachel, Janet and Carol, with six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Charles Leslie Bibby,businessman; born, 1917,died, August 2, 2007.