Former Business School Dean passes away aged 86
Former Business School Dean passes away aged 86
Emeritus Professor Edward Lea passed away on Monday, 24 January 2022 following a short illness.
Edward Cooper Lea was born on 18 March 1935 in Liverpool. He left school at 18 and following national service he went to work in the Northwest Sales Division of Bowater Scott. He chose to live in Todmorden for the sales job because he had fond memories of being evacuated there in 1940 with his immediate and extended family.
Ted Lea studied part time for a BSc Economics at the London School of Economics, then part of the University of London. He soon obtained a taste for things academic and started tutoring part time at Burnley College. Following the award of his bachelor’s degree, Ted began as a Lecturer at Huddersfield College of Technology on 1 December 1966. He obtained the Certificate of the International Teachers Programme awarded by Harvard University on behalf of the International Schools of Business and Management in 1970, following an eight-week course at IMD Lausanne, which is one of the world’s leading management schools.
In 1967, Ted was responsible for leading the validation of the first bachelor’s degree in marketing in the UK. The BA (Hons) Textile Marketing combined the industrial expertise of the Department of Textiles with a growing interest in Marketing, particularly Fashion Marketing, amongst potential students. A BA (Hons) Marketing (Engineering) was validated in 1968 using the same approach. Both degrees had compulsory sandwich work placements and produced very employable graduates. They were only phased out and replaced with a generic Marketing degree in the early 1990s following the decline of the textile and engineering industries in the UK.
Following promotions to Senior Lecturer and Principal Lecturer, Ted was appointed as Head of a new Division of Marketing within the Faculty of Business, in what had become Huddersfield Polytechnic in 1970. The divisions of Marketing and Business Studies were merged in 1981 to create a department of Economics and Marketing which perfectly reflected Ted’s background! (The other departments in the Faculty of Business were Accounting and Finance, Law and Management).
In September 1990, the Faculty of Business was abolished and replaced by two Schools – a School of Accountancy, Law and Management and a School of Business. Ted was appointed as the Dean of the School of Business, which included subject groups in Economics, Marketing, Organisational Behaviour and Business Policy. In 1991, Ted was conferred with the title of Professor by the Polytechnic. In September 1996, the two Schools were merged to create the Huddersfield University Business School. Ted retired at this point and was granted the title of Emeritus Professor by the University.
Ted was one of the first academics to teach Business Policy – which is now known as Strategic Management. He co-authored, with Brian Kenny from Huddersfield and two colleagues from Bradford, one of the three most used text/case books in the UK. He was also actively involved with the European Case Clearing House (subsequently The Case Centre).
In July 1988, the Department of Economics and Marketing Studies organised the annual (international) conference of the Marketing Education Group (now the Academy of Marketing). Fittingly, the next Academy of Marketing Conference will be held in Huddersfield this July! Reference will be made to Ted Lea’s role in organising the 1988 conference.
