Ralph Martin Bewick CBE

  General Notes:

PASSING OF A NOTABLE INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIALIST
An appreaciation of RALPH MARTIN BEWICK C.B.E. by Sir FREDERICK NORMAN D.L. J.P. (An old comrade)
"Know ye not that a great man and a Prince Has fallen in Israel this day?"
These words leapt to my lips, when in the eventide of a Sabbath day wires flashed to me the tidings that my friend Bewick had passed into the Unknown. Calm reflection on his rare qualities-mental, moral and spiritual-based on my full knowledge of him, gleaned in the busy mart, the intellectual arena, and the spiritual realm, confirm the soundness of that spontaneous finding. To bring. out in boldrelief Bewick's sterling character one needs to remember that he was born in the Mild-Victorian era, when the. fruits of the Methodist revival were blooming and abundantly.Then,sincerity,simplicity and sanctity were held cardinal virtues. Then service and sacrifice were the hall-marks of citizenship. Then, work was considered as a duty and not as a drudgery. Then, wise industrialists were awakening to the fact that in the close proximity of its raw materials and the quality of its brains and brawn, Providence had equipped this island home of ours to become "the workshop of the world," and were eager to play their part 'in materialising this majestic ideal. Then, the Industrial Revolution was getting into its stride in its triumphal march to commercial supremacy. Capital content "with small profits and quick returns," Labour willing to give "fair day's work for a fair day's pay." Individual responsibility paramount, "a man's word his bond." Its founders had caught the spirit of Wesley's claim, ' The world is my parish," and reechoed it in their slogan, "The world is our market."
Unfurling the banner of Free Trade, basing their policy on sound economics and their practices on pure ethics, they forecasted a milllennium, in which want should be banished from our own ordersand plenty showered throughout the world, by winning wealth from nature by honest toil; co-operating with the Creator in his beneficent design. to bless with super-abundance, those willing to conquerthe earth and subdue it, as the charter for their being allowed "to live in the land."
AN EMPIRE BUILDER.
The clamant cry of the times was for missionaries to flare the evangel of commerce throughout " lands beyond the seas." In response to this cry my friend Bewick stepped into the arena prodigally equipped by nature for his task. A robust Tyne-sider, with a constitution that enabled him to withstand the ravages of yellow and black water fever, but which crippled his nervous system permanently, and to which he fell victim in pursuit of his duties. A mentality rich in saving common sense a mind stored with classic lore, and a genius for linguistic attainment, set him in the front rank of Empire builders, and right well he did his work. The time taken in long journeying was not wasted in frivolity, but husbanded to master the philosophies of the foreigners, whose patronage for the products he vended it was his ambition to win. His approach to them was not that of an iconoclast intent on smashing their idols, or ridiculing their aforetime methods, but that of an apostle of prudent progress,wise in more excellent ways for their betterment, on lines of mutual advantage. Thus he won his way into their hearts and scored success for his adventure in a marvellous manner, came to be regarded by them not as " tout," but as a guide, philosopher and friend. It was a
delight to those of us favoured to accompany him on his repeat journeys to witness the warmth of the reception that was extended to him in the homes and business centres of those he had anchored to British industry by his tact and transparent honesty. And thus it came about that Bewick took rank as a prince of prudent progress on the cosmopolitan plane.
His charming manner sustained to the full the high traditions of an English gentleman. He was a modest learner of the needs of one quarter of the globe, in order that he might become the wise adviserof from what other quarter of the globe those needs might best be supplied. Grounded firmly in his knowledge that obedience to natural law had for reward happiness and plenty, while for disobedience the penalties were disease and death. His prime marked the high water of prudent progress, the rough and tumble of the Industrial Revolution, the horrors of the hungry forties were sad reminiscences of the past. The wealth being steadily won from nature by the honest toil of the Victorian, was raising the standard of life in all classes; we were paying our way, 'reducing our National and local debts and rejoicing in substantial annual savings to loan to other nations to improve their facilities for developing their resources to our advantage in providing outlets for our increasing population in constructive undertakings abroad, the materials for which kept our static trades humming. The interest on such loans poured into our land in the shape of food stuffs, which we failed to produce to meet our needs. All these harbingers 'of richer blessings' in store for us, if we but continued, to tread the road of prudent progress. Then succeeded the last three "dirty' decades" in which emotionalegotism has supplanted wise statesmanship, the parasite fastened on the producer, the speculator ruined the creator. Grip these facts and you have revealed the root causes of the depression that prevails where plenty should abound. It is of evil omen that while we have been penurious in our financial rewards and public honours to Empire builders like Bewick, we have been lavish in our millions and peerages to the parasites, speculators, and inflators who have wrought our ruin. " Climbers " easily outstrip " Constructors " in a superficial age.
Bewick's philosophic satisfaction abounded in the pride he felt at the world markets he laid founded for our products and the hosts of disciples he had trained to carry on his work. He knew that whenhe hands in his lot at the end of the days it will be as a worthy workman of whom the Master Builder need not be ashamed."

HlS CHARACTERISTICS.
And now in a series of lightning sketches, our brotherly intimacy being my warrant, let me portray his great characteristics.
Take first his graces: He could clothe sincerity with a suavity that could make ignorance stand abashed, set prejudice pitying itself, and make bigotry broaden its outlook. He could deck loyalty out in a panoply, that stood by truth in spite of consequence, sans undue offensiveness. He personified simplicity, childlike as regards personal habit, but profound as touching essentials. He made honesty respond to Tennyson's poetic appeal, that as knowledge grew from more to more, yet more of reverence should in us dwell. I have seen him hie himself away from a great Continental conference; at which he was the "star turn "—unobserved as he thought—to some sacred shrine, before whose altar he would prostrate himself in contemplation of the Infinite. Great man, Bewick of him in truth it might be said:
"The elements were so mixed in him That nature could stand up and say to all the world
Behold a man."



GIFTS AND GRACES.
Then take his gifts. He was a very lexicon of languages, a fact which prompted me on
one occasion to declare that had the builders of the Tower of Babel retained him as clerk of the works, their project had not failed through the "confusion of tongues." This gift opened up to him theliteratures of the world, enabled him to discuss with men of all nations the complexities that beset their problems. We were both members of a cosmopohitan school of thinkers who exchanged views on world-wide currents of thought; all of us sat at the feet of Bewick realising that he, of all others, had the broadest outlook on international affairs. He possessed in a phenomenal degree that balanced mentality that enabled humans to ply the "muck rake" for the material needs of the body with dignity and efficiency and at the same time hitch their wagons to the stars in quest of sustenance for their souls. They knew little of Bewick, who only saw him fretted with the meanness of small men, or irritated with the petty things of life. They only knew him who gathered him round their firesides atthe close of the day, when bodily needs satisfied and time forgotten his mind was free to call in time company of the immortals, from Socrates to Einstein, and under their inspiration unfold the plans of the Great Architect of the Universe, revealing the immutability of prudent progress down the flight, of ages. Thi5 is no pedantic spirit, but the spontaneous outflowing of a cultured mind, intentonly on distilling truth.
ELOQUENT EVOLUTIONIST.
Of a host of such scenes I single one, as illustrating his magic power to hold men of all creeds and races, under the spell of his lofty pronouncements. I was a fellow guest in a cosmopolitan house party in the South of Spain who spent the Sunday morning boating on a glorious inland lake, After Iunch on a delectable island we squatted on the green sward in ideal sunshine. A happy inspiration of my wife's prompted her to suggest that as we had neg1ected our devotional exercises on the sacred day, it would he fitting to ask Bewick to favour us with one of his lay sermons. He readily responded and for an hour poured out the purest eloquence graced with the sweetest toleration, His theme the evolution of civilisation in which material, mental, moral, and spiritual influences were dealt with. Truth was his loadstar, liberty his obsession handled in a fashion that lifted his hearers above "that unrest which men miscall delight," into that purer atmosphere which prevailed on the shores of Galilee, when the Divine Master distilled into the minds of His disciples the fundamental principles on which human happiness is based, and the neglect of which has brought us to the sorry plight in which we wallow today. Here we had Bewick at his best, his hearers ashamed of their "'ISM," in the glare of the Light from Heaven he shone upon them.
And now he has gone, leaving us forgetful of the "spots upon the sun " mindful only of the richer rays it shed upon our mournful way, his ashes at his own request scattered to the winds of that northern clime that fostered the breed from which he sprang. His spirit— "Joined to the choir invisible,
Of those immortal dead. who live again
In minds made better by their presence here."
The world poorer for the passing (or a "man's man through and through "; we dazed and wondering if we "shall ever look upon his like again."

Reprinted from the " Widnes and Runcorn Chronicle," February 16th, 1935.
BIRT: RIN MH:IF439
DEAT: RIN MH:IF440

Ralph married Louisa Geraldine Parkinson, daughter of Henry Parkinson and Henrietta Flood, on 25 Jan 1911. (Louisa Geraldine Parkinson was born on 25 Jul 1872 in Dalkey, Nr Dublin and died on 23 Feb 1963 in Cheam, Surrey.)

  Marriage Notes:

MARR: RIN MH:FF98