Henry Johnson (railway executive)

Henry Cecil Johnson was born in Lavendon, Buckinghamshire on 11 September 1906, the son of William Longland and Alice Mary Johnson of Lavendon, Buckinghamshire.[1] He was educated at Bedford Modern School.[2]

Johnson joined the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) as a traffic apprentice in 1923.[1][3] After various posts in the Operating Department of LNER, Johnson was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Southern Area, LNER, in 1942.[1] In 1955 he became Chief Operating Superintendent of the Eastern Region and later General Manager in 1958.[1]

In 1962, Johnson became General Manager of the London Midland Region, and was also its Chairman between 1963 and 1967.[1] He ‘took charge of the electrification of the Euston to Manchester and Liverpool line, the first main-line electrification, completed in 1966’.[1][4] Johnson became Vice-Chairman of the British Railways Board in 1967 and was appointed its Chairman in 1968, a position he held until 1971.[1]

The finances of British Railways improved under Johnson's chairmanship and when he left in 1971, British Rail had a surplus of £9.7 million.[1] Although this was largely as a result of the Transport Act 1968, when grants were made to unprofitable passenger services providing a public service, Johnson astutely began the development of surplus railway land and established the British Rail Property Board in 1970.[1] In the 1970s British Railways earned £20 million a year from land sales.[1]

After British Railways, Johnson became Chairman of MEPC (1971–76) and held board positions at Lloyds Bank, the Trident Life Assurance Company and Imperial Life of Canada.[1]

Johnson was appointed CBE in 1962, made Knight Bachelor in 1968 and KBE in 1972.[1]

Always known as Bill Johnson, ‘he had a friendly and relaxed manner, but he was shrewd, a good listener, and expert at delegating’.[1][3] Sir Peter Parker, a later Chairman, ‘admired his honesty and courage', describing him as ‘straight as a gun barrel.[1] He was ‘extremely popular with the railway employees, who admired him as [then being] the only railwayman to have started at the bottom and worked his way up through the ranks to become Chairman of British Railways’.[1]

Johnson was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club and The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.[1] The BBC's Your Paintings Series has a portrait of Johnson.[5] In 1932 he married Evelyn Mary Morton; they had two daughters.[1] He died on 13 March 1988 in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire.[1]

• Sir Henry Johnson’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography
• Sir Henry Johnson at Art UK