Lyndall Urwick

Lyndall F. Urwick
Born	3 March 1891
Died	5 December 1983
Occupation	Author, intellectual, and management consultant

Lyndall Fownes Urwick (3 March 1891 – 5 December 1983) was a British management consultant and business thinker. He is recognised for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive theory of management administration. He wrote an influential book called The Elements of Business Administration, published in 1943. With Luther Gulick, he founded the academic journal Administrative Science Quarterly.

Urwick was born in Worcestershire, the son of a partner in Fownes Brothers, a long-established glove-making firm. He was educated at Boxgrove Primary School, Repton School and New College, Oxford, where he read History.

He saw active service in the trenches during the First World War, rising to the rank of Major, and being awarded the Military Cross. Though he did not himself attend the military Staff College at Camberley, his respect for military training would affect his outlook on management in later life.

After the war, he joined his father's business of Fownes Brothers. He was then recruited by Seebohm Rowntree, head of the York chocolate company and progressive philanthropist. Urwick's role involved assisting the modernisation of the company, bringing to bear his own thinking, which had two main influences. One was the work of F.W. Taylor with its concept of scientific management, and the other, counterbalancing it in its emphasis on the humanity of management was Mary Parker Follett, for whom he had great admiration.

Urwick's own prolific writings on management truly began in this period. At this time, Urwick, along with his colleague at Rowntree's, Oliver Sheldon, became active members of the Taylor Society.

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