Eric Vansittart Bowater

Sir Eric Vansittart Bowater, F.R.S.A. (16 January 1895 - 30 August 1962), was an English businessman, who took the family firm Bowater from a paper merchant to the world's largest paper products company in his 40 years as its CEO and chairman.

The son of Sir Frederick W. Bowater, K.B.E., and Dame Alice Bowater, he was educated at Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey. He then served with the Royal Artillery from 1913. Badly wounded at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and decorated Legion of Honour, he was subsequently pensioned off from the British Army.

After a period of convalescence, he joined the family business of W.V. Bowater and Sons in 1919, taking charge of project management for construction of the company's first paper mill at Northfleet on the south side of the Thames estuary near Gravesend, Kent. After ensuring that the mill reached full production in 1925, he joined the company board and became Chief Executive in 1927.

Expanding the firm quickly, he sold part of the business to Lord Rothermere, using the funds to double production at Northfleet. He then reached agreement with both Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook to invest directly in the build of a new paper mill at Ellesmere Port on the River Mersey close to Liverpool, with the mill's profits ensured through long-term supply agreements with his investors. However, the 1930s recession brought about a need by the investors for cash injections into their own business, resulting by the early 1930s in the company again being wholly family owned. Bowater then over saw an international expansion of the business, with offices and mills in Canada, the United States and Australia.

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