Felix Pole

Who was Felix Pole?

Sir Felix John Clewett Pole was a British railway manager and industrialist. He was general manager of the Great Western Railway, before becoming executive chairman of Associated Electrical Industries, a post he held until 1945.

Born in Little Bedwyn in Wiltshire, Pole joined the Great Western Railway as a telegraph lad at Swindon, aged 14 in 1891.

He was rapidly promoted and in 1904 was working in General Manager James Charles Inglis's department in the headquarters at Paddington Station working on the railway's marketing campaigns. In 1912 he became head of the Staff and Labour Department, Assistant General Manager in 1919 and finally appointed General Manager in 1921.

Pole was knighted on 28 February 1924 and left the Great Western Railway in 1929 to become Executive Chairman of AEI. Pole who was reported to be completely blind by 1945, was thought too old to lead the company into the post war electronics boom and was succeeded by Captain Oliver Lyttelton.

Pole died in Reading in 1956 and is buried in Little Bedwyn.