MG and George Harriman… the happy marriage
Yes, of course, we all know about John Thornley, Sir Leonard Lord and the growth of MG under BMC control in the 1950s but where, and how, did we first get to know about George Harriman? How much do we all know, in fact, about the urbane and cultured Coventry-born entrepreneur who took over as BMC’s Chairman in 1961 and was the figurehead who sold out to Sir Donald Stokes, and Leyland, in 1968?
Quite right… ‘Young George’, as he was affectionately known in the industrial Midlands (his father had been a well-known industrial figure in Coventry a full generation before him), might have been an increasingly influential figure in BMC throughout its 20year life but he always seemed to be in the shadow of Leonard Lord. Yet it was Harriman, not Lord, with whom the tycoons of the British motor industry would prefer to do business and it was Harriman who was the always urbane ‘face’ of the corporation throughout the 1960s when BMC was at its apogée. Even so, it is worth noting that he had little contact with MG until the 1950s for, until the BMC merger began to take root, there had been no ties with Austin of any nature.
Although Harriman owed much of his career leaps, and
