Ernst Bader (Quaker)

Ernest Bader (24 November 1890 – 5 February 1982) and his wife, Dora Scott, founded a chemical company, Scott Bader, and gave it to the employees, under terms of Common ownership, forming the Scott Bader Commonwealth, in 1951.

Scott Bader Ltd. was founded in 1921 with office premises in Finsbury Square, London, and moved to Wollaston, Northamptonshire in 1943. It makes synthetic resins and composite materials. Since 1951 it has expanded and is now international, employing around 600 people.

For a full history, and a chart showing Bader's ideal of common ownership as The Third Way, see The Man Who Gave His Company Away: A Biography of Ernest Bader, Founder of the Scott Bader Commonwealth by Susanna Hoe (foreword E. F. Schumacher); London, William Heinemann (1978) .

Originally of Swiss nationality, Ernest Bader had been a conscientious objector in his home country. He was a Quaker, co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1957 and a member of the Committee of 100 (United Kingdom). Influential in Bader's thinking were the Society of Friends, which he joined in 1945, 17th century Quaker, George Fox, Gandhi, John Middleton Murry and Wilfred Wellock and Canon John Collins with whom he establish Demintry (Society for Democratic Integration in Industry) in 1958.

When he died in 1982, aged 91, at his home in Wollaston, Bader owned no personal business assets, private house or car.

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