A graduate of the L.S.E., Frank Cassell spent some time as a journalist on The New Statesman and The Banker. He then joined the Civil Service in the Treasury, where his career went from Economics Adviser, Senior Economics Adviser, Under Secretary to Deputy Secretary. He served as Economics Minister in Washington and became the UK Executive Director of the I.M.F. and the World Bank. He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). Frank maintained strong links with the school and was the guest speaker at a recent annual prizegiving. The Association extends its deepest sympathy to his family.

The following obituary was published in The Times on 1 December and it is reproduced here, with their kind permission.

Obituary – Frank Cassell

Economist who, as a senior figure at the Treasury for more than 20 years, helped to steer British fiscal policy during turbulent times.

Frank Cassell was close to the centre of macroeconomic policy making at the Treasury for more than 20 years. He had an excellent knowledge of the financial and monetary systems and used this to good effect as economic management in the Treasury evolved, fitfully and at times painfully, from the Keynesian approach dominant in the mid-1960s to one that put emphasis on the control of inflation and financial stability.

While generally in sympathy with this evolution, which coincided in its later stage with liberalisation of the financial system, his natural caution meant that at times he favoured slower and more careful change and he was never ideological. His background in financial journalism gave him a different perspective to that of most macro-economic experts in the Treasury and made him one of the best drafters of internal papers and published policy statements.

An avid cricket fan, he could give the impression of being more concerned about a collapse in the England or Kent batting than of adverse financial developments, but this concealed a deep seriousness about economic policy. His genial manner helped to reduce the temperature both in internal Treasury disputes and those with the Bank of England and other government departments. He had an ability to advise ministers frankly and in ways that they did not find threatening. These qualities made him an outstanding Treasury adviser and then director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank and later the Crown Agents.

Frank Cassell was born in 1930. He was educated at Borden Grammar School in Kent and after National Service in the REME studied economics at the LSE. His early career was in financial journalism, first at the News Chronicle and from 1958 as deputy editor of The Banker. His book: Gold or Credit – The Economics and Politics of International Money, was published in 1965. He joined the Treasury in that same year after an interview with the head of the Government Economic Service, Sir Alec Cairncross, who had liked an anonymous article he had published about controlling credit.

In his first decade in the Treasury came Harold Wilson’s devaluation, the subsequent fiscal squeeze and IMF programme, and later the rise in inflation and oil price hike on 1973. Through this period, Cassell progressed steadily up the Treasury economists’ hierarchy, specialising in monetary policy, the finance of industry, and balance of payments and exchange rate issues. By the mid-1970s, he was the under-secretary in charge of the Finance Economic Unit at the time when another IMF programme looked likely. He played a role in the opening discussions with the IMF in 1976, often recalling a secret meeting between Treasury officials and IMF staff in a Paris hotel before official negotiations began. He accompanied the Cabinet minister Harold Lever on a trip to the US in the hope of persuading the Administration to support less severe terms, a mission that Cassell privately considered to have had, if anything, the opposite effect.

During 1976, and before the agreement with the IMF, he was transferred from his specialism on monetary and financial policy to be head of the medium-term and policy analysis group of economists. If it was less to Cassell’s taste than his previous role, he concealed this with his usual good humour. Until that point the medium-term assessment of the economy, for which he was now responsible, was the formal background to the Treasury’s proposals for future public expenditure growth. The analysis was in volume terms, with inflation assumed to be kept in check by incomes policy. After assessing the potential growth of the economy towards full employment and the demands of private consumption and net exports, to keep the balance of payments secure, what was left could be allocated to public spending.

But, as the Treasury Permanent Secretary Sir Douglas Wass’s meticulous account of the 1976 crsis shows, the external financial pressures on the UK had made such an approach impossible. Nevertheless, the medium term assessments continued until 1979 with Treasury ministers increasingly reluctant to share the results with spending departments. As well as organising this assessment, Cassell drafted the economic policy introduction to the annual public expenditure White Papers that set out the Government’s view of the probable growth of the economy and public expenditure. This text was fought over, with some officials regarding the growth assumptions as too optimistic and ministers invariably regarding them as disappointingly low.

In the late 1970s the practice of interrogating Treasury macroeconomists before parliamentary committees began, and following the publication of the expenditure White Papers, Cassell appeared before the House of Commons Expenditure Sub-Committee. He was not an enthusiastic proponent of the Treasury publishing more information or of officials being interrogated about it, but fulfilled the role with some skill. He was regularly asked by MPs of all parties about the prospects for growth and unemployment and with difficulty managed to get by without going beyond the little that ministers had authorised him to say.

The arrival of Conservative ministers in 1979 greatly intensified the changes that the 1976 crisis had set in motion. Cassell’s main task was, under the direction of Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson, to take the lead in drafting the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) which was unveiled for the first time in the 1980 Budget and restated annually. The emphasis was on reducing inflation through monetary and fiscal discipline as a means of producing the conditions for stable growth. Drafting the annual MTFS in the early 1980s involved a number of difficult debates: the unfamiliar strength of sterling had devastating effects on certain industries, the targets for monetary growth were regularly exceeded (partly as a result of financial liberalisation) and the previously assumed relationships between monetary growth and inflation broke down. The fiscal plans were not achieved in the early years as public expenditure proved more difficult to constrain than expected. Cassell was at the centre of all these debates and organised drafts of the MTFS each year. While he was a strong proponent of anti-inflationary policies, he looked back on these years with a certain ruefulness.

In 1983 he was promoted to deputy secretary public finance, supervising the Treasury’s monetary and tax policy teams. This role drew on all his previous experience, and for five years he was to be a key figure in the Treasury hierarchy. He had a central role in the preparation of annual Budgets and was closely involved in discussions on a number of possible policy changes such as the amalgamation of national insurance contributions and income tax, which was rejected, and independent taxation for women, which went ahead after his departure for Washington, in the 1988 Budget. His responsibilities involved daily contact on monetary, exchange rate and banking issues with Bank of England officials, mainly Eddie George, with whom he had a remarkably friendly relationship given the institutional tensions. He and other senior Treasury and Bank of England officials knew the City and many of its senior figures in a way that contrasted with the position in 2007 and 2008 with the onset of the current financial crisis, a change that baffled him. His dealings with the Bank of England and the problems of the City ended in his final weeks in the job with his pivotal role in confronting the wish of the BP share sale underwriters to be released from their obligations following the 1987 stock market crash. During this time he began to have more pronounced concerns about the effects of financial deregulation on the growth of private sector credit and spending.

The most controversial monetary policy problem with which he was involved was whether the UK should join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Experience with the UK’s financial crises since the 1960s made him extremely cautious about such a commitment, and he retained this sceptical attitude towards the ERM and subsequently EMU for the rest of his life. He had co-authored a paper for Nigel Lawson in the 1980s warning about the difficulties of defending the sterling exchange rate if it came under pressure in the ERM. However, having had his say and the political decision having been made in the Treasury to propose ERM membership, he became an integral part of the team that engaged with No 10 on the issue.

In Washington from 1988 he had the triple role of economic minister at the British Embassy and executive director at both the IMF and World Bank. He had long wanted this move and it occurred at an historic moment. The Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe was disintegrating and countries were turning to the IMF as they began the transition to market economies. Cassell’s personality was ideally suited to influence the Washington debate and keep London in touch with developments at the IMF. His telegram to London on the agreement at the IMF board of the first Polish programme was a masterpiece. While in Washington he was assisted by a starry team of future Civil Service leaders including Gus O’Donnell, Suma Chakrabarti, and Jeremy Heywood.

His spell in Washington ended with retirement in 1990. He was on the board of the Crown Agents from 1991 to 1997 and chair of the Crown Agents pension trustees from 1997 to 2006. He maintained a keen interest in macroeconomic and financial affairs until his death. Recently he watched the evolving crises in the banking sector and the eurozone with incredulity but his customary realism.

He married Jean Seabrook in 1957, and she survives him, with their two sons and daughter.

Frank Cassell, CB, economist at the Treasury, was born on August 21, 1930. He died on October 14, 2011, aged 81

On leaving he joined BEA as a management trainee.  He was posted to Moscow in 1961 and returned to this country in 1963 to work in London.  He entered a team in the inaugural Milstead Sixes cricket tournament in 1964.  The side was called “The Dregs” – David Rigden’s English Gentlemen’s six and we won!  Although David worked abroad for much of his younger life the team competed every year for over forty years until the annual fixture ceased.  On a BEA cricket tour in Corfu in 1965 he met Diana and they married the following year.

From 1966 until 1973 he worked in Libya and Barcelona and then returned to London and was instrumental in setting up the Shuttle service for BEA between Heathrow and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast.  On the merger of BEA and BOAC he joined British Airways and was posted to Miami in 1977 as Manager of the 13 Southern States of America.  From there he moved to Australia and then on to Kuala Lumpur before returning to London and he retired from BA in 1989.

He was too energetic and dynamic to rest in retirement and spent the next twenty years with Edel Grass – he arranged the all-weather hockey pitches at the Westland School and Gore Court and the Borden Grammar School pitch.  They moved to Somerset where he played golf until two or three years ago following the diagnosis of cancer.  After a long illness he died at home on 31 July 2011 and his funeral took place in Evercreech, Somerset on 17 August.

The funeral will take place at the Medway Crematorium East Chapel, Robin Hood Lane, Bluebell Hill ME9 5QU on Saturday August 13th at 10:00.

Allan’s son, Mark, says it would be lovely to meet any Old Boys who remember him and to hear old memories.

Instead of flowers, Allan was a supporter of the RNLI, so any contributions to the RNLI would be gratefully received by John Weir, Funeral Director, 130-132 High Street, Rainham, Kent ME8 8AR.

Since the start of the war in 1939, he had already spent time helping in the ARP and could have joined up when he finished at Borden.  But he was advised to get a qualification first, so he went off to Bristol University, which had an excellent reputation for Physics, and shared a room at Wills Hall with Kevin Keohane from BGS, also reading Physics.

In December 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and sank the RN battleships ‘Prince of Wales’ and ‘Repulse’ off the coast of Malaya.  Japan had not declared war, but it was now obvious that another phase of the war had begun. Len had to finish the academic year at Bristol, but then he volunteered for the Army and did an intensive training course in radio equipment and was commissioned into REME when he passed.  And so to Catterick camp in Yorkshire and responsibility for running a wireless workshop – and eventually in 1943 an overseas posting in to Burma to join the 20th Indian Division.  The troopship went as far as Bombay, then he travelled by train across India to Calcutta and eventually into Burma – to Kohima, Imphal and finally Tamu (HQ of the Division).  Len was in charge of 3 electronic workshops in 3 brigades responsible for seeing that their crews kept communications open – a difficult task when the heat and humidity led to mould growing over electronic components in the wireless sets and there was always a shortage of supplies!

To prevent the Japanese from invading India, all army units were called to defend Imphal.  They lived in dugouts round the perimeter, in monsoon conditions, for 3 months to defend Imphal against very heavy attacks.  Eventually Imphal was releived, the Japanese experienced their first defeat and the 14th Army started to make its way down to Rangoon.  The Japanese surrendered after the 2 atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan, and the war was over at last.  Len was sad to leave his Indian troops but decided not to stay on in the Army but to go back to Bristol to finish his degree.  He was pleased to hear back in England that he had been ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for his work in  Burma and he felt that his Army experience had made him a more confident person, able to manage men and to respect people from other nations.

Back at Bristol, he worked hard and played hard too – rowing and swimming for the university, playing football and organising a Judo club, for all of which he was awarded Half Colours.

Len Grice – 4th from the left

He ended up with a ‘First’ in Physics (an achievement in those days!) and decided to accept an offer from GEC to work as a research physicist in their Hurst Laboratories in Wembley.  He started there in August 1948 in the Illumination Lab designing and testing lighting fittings for streets and airports.  He was then asked by the Staff Manager to help with staff recruitment and be responsible for education & training at the Labs.  This seemed an interesting challenge so he accepted and was therefore involved in personnel work from the early days of its development.

Having been Best Man to Brian O’Connell, Tom Croally and Leslie Bryceson at their weddings, Len eventually got married to Joan Thirkettle (whose brother Eric is also an Old Bordenian), an ex-County School girl whom he had known for many years.

In 1952, the GEC Staff Manager asked Len to transfer to Head Office and co-ordinate training throughout the company and to organise the training programme for overseas students.  He was enjoying life at the Labs and didn’t really want to go into central London every day, but it was a chance to get to know what went on in all the other parts of GEC, so he accepted.

Then, out of the blue, came the requirement to replace the Controller of Training at the Coventry factory.  The management there had realised that with the advance of technology, more graduates were needed to develop new products or they would lose orders to their competitors.  The MD had recently leased a stately home, Coombe Abbey, on the outskirts of the city to be a hostel for graduate and student apprentices; if Len accepted the job, he would be expected to live in and ‘keep an eye on things’!

Coombe Abbey

So began 7 years of life at Coombe Abbey – a happy but busy time for Len whose evenings and weekends were often spent on Coombe affairs after a hard day’s work in the office!  He set up a house committee which he chaired and which sorted out any problems among up to 70 apprentices and the domestic staff.  He and the boys built a fine swimming pool next to the tennis court in the grounds and then later a bar in the basement of the monastic cloisters.

There were great social occasions and sporting ones and there was a very happy relationship between British and overseas students.  Several Old Bordenians and their families came to visit the Grices there.

Three children were born in the Abbey to Joan and Len in those years – 2 girls and a boy – so a baby in a pram in the courtyard was a common sight!  But when the daughters started school, Len and family moved to Kenilworth.  At work, Len was getting more involved in training methods and in setting up new courses for engineers in local colleges and universities.  In 1961, he was made Group Personnel Manager for GEC Telecoms factories in Coventry, Middlesborough and Aycliffe.  At a time when the trade unions in the car industry in Coventry were very militant, he was respected as a skilled negotiator for a company where strikes were relatively few.

In 1967, Len was involved in the merger of AEI into the GEC empire under Arnold Weinstock.  A number of factories had to be closed, but arrangements were made to find work for those made redundant and, when the Woolwich factory, the largest, finally closed in 1969, 93% of the workforce who wanted work had been placed in alternative employment thanks to Len and his team.  He was also becoming more involved in work external to GEC.  He was a Board member of the Coventry and District Employers Association, one of the team that sat on Industrial Tribunals in Birmingham, he chaired the local Employment Committee and the area Manpower Board, and also the committee which produced for the government ‘The Coventry Report on Employment and Training in the Coventry Area’ (there was another one in Liverpool).   He set up a job sharing scheme for school leavers which attracted international interest.  His work with colleges to promote the training and employment of young people was acknowledged by the award of an Honorary Life Fellowship at Coventry Polytechnic – and when this became Coventry University, he chaired the personnel committee until 1996.

In 1981, he received an OBE for his work for the Manpower Services Commission.

Meanwhile, in 1978, when Len was still playing tennis, squash and badminton and sailing and gardening in whatever spare time he had, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was on medication for that for the rest of his life.  A year later, he lost the sight of one eye but managed well with the remaining good one, except that he could no longer play games.  He retired from GEC in 1988 but still continued his active life in the community, attending governors’ meetings, chairing committees, etc.  Even when he became completely blind in 2000 he still took an active part in the running of the Kenilworth Talking News for the Blind.  He felt himself lucky to have so many friends, some from BGS days, others from his working life, others again from his retirement years who read to him, took him out for walks or for a pub lunch and made his last years a happy time in spite of his disabilities.  He was always positive, optimistic and uncomplaining.  He will be greatly missed by his widow, his 3 children, 8 grandchildren and all who knew him.

Len Grice with Brian O’Connell and Freddie Cooper – April 1998 OBA Dinner

I must apologise to Len’s family for the very late posting of this obituary.

John Macrae died on Monday 27th September 2010 after a long battle with cancer.  His funeral has been arranged at St. Michael’s Church, Sittingbourne, at 11 a.m. on Friday 8th October, followed by a private cremation.  The family have expressed a preference for donations, rather than flowers, to either of two charities : MacMillan Cancer Support or the Wisdom Hospice (both c/o R. High & Sons, 1 Bayford Road, Sittingbourne, MR10 3AD.

Bryan Short and Graham Barnes have provided the following tributes to John, his life and his association with the school.

Bryan Short writes: John joined the School aged 11, and spent most of the rest of his life there. He did his Physics Degree at Reading University (and a part-time M. Ed. there while teaching at Borden) and taught for two years at Maidstone Grammar School as his first job. He then returned to Borden as Head of Physics, and never left.

He was an effortless classroom teacher, but much more. He was a genial and caring form master, looked after junior hockey, and blossomed as a senior house master. He never seemed hurried and had a ready smile. Physics was the strongest of the sciences, with a strong flow to university courses in Physics and Engineering. His pupils liked him at School and returned later to look him up. He was conscious of the Borden Physics tradition. He had been taught by George Dawkins, and groomed one of his own pupils to succeed him as Head of Physics (later Science), David Jenkins.

John wisely developed interests out of school. Jaguar cars was one. Another was amateur radio. He contacted people all over the world, drawing particular pleasure from conversations with Old Boys. And when neighbours accused him of interfering with their televisions, he was carefully briefed to be able to rebut the charges! His daughter, Karen, caught meningitis, and this sparked off an interest in the health service. John became involved and eventually became Chairman of the Local Health Committee.

He coped with so many interests, in and out of School, partly because he was so well-organised. When the School qualified for a second Deputy, he was the obvious candidate for the post. But he might have left us. In the 1970s it was a recognised move for senior men to move from grammar schools to colleges of education as lecturers. John was tempted. I told him he was a natural schoolmaster, and should not be seduced into the college route. He applied, I wrote the appropriate references, and he went for interviews. He then decided that his place was in a grammar school, and he settled down at Borden. To my great pleasure and relief – and I think to his.

Graham Barnes writes: John’s name appears for the first time on the list of OBA Committee Members in 1980. In those days we had somebody called a ‘School Liaison Officer’, and that was when he took over the post from John Weekes. He wasn’t allowed to get away with such a low-key role for long! He quickly became Membership Secretary and then, in 1986, succeeded Greg Pope as Secretary of the Association, a job which he performed right up until the time his illness kept him away from Committee Meetings. For a number of years, too, he was the Association’s representative on the School Governing body.

It is no exaggeration to say that John was the heart and soul of the Association. He did so much more than perform the Secretary’s job with great enthusiasm, cheerfulness, tact and skill ; he really cared about the Association’s health and the direction in which it was going. And he lost no opportunity to promote its virtues to non-Members and to those leaving School, whom he always addressed at the end of the Summer Term.

His prodigious memory was invaluable to the Committee. Calling on a lifetime’s knowledge of the School as a pupil and as a teacher from 1964 until 2001, he was always able to explain the circumstances which led up to an event or a past decision, and it was almost impossible for anyone to mention the name of an Old Bordenian without John saying “Oh, I remember him. He was a bit of a tearaway – unlike his brother who….” That special relationship he had with the boys whom he taught was evident at the Annual Dinners, which – until last year – he attended without fail ; there were usually queues waiting to talk to him!

It is a cliché to say about the departed that they will be sorely missed, but in this instance it is absolutely true. John leaves behind a void which it will be virtually impossible to fill but also a rich legacy of abiding memories. For countless people, it was a huge privilege to have known him.

Bob had a great many interests in his life, but perhaps four stand out above the rest. Firstly he was a dedicated Member of the Association. A very modest man, he always felt grateful for what he thought the School had done for him, and more than repaid that debt by serving on the Committee for no fewer than 52 years! In that time he was variously the Hockey Club Representative, Membership Secretary and finally Editor of the Maroon, where his School and wide Sittingbourne connections helped him to produce a particularly friendly, ‘newsy’ type of magazine.

Secondly, he was a passionate sportsman – an accomplished hockey player and cricketer, and a keen supporter and follower of both games later in life. And when he was no longer able to participate, he was often seen devouring the pages of Wisden! His sporting exploits have given his many friends and his family a rich legacy of happy memories.

Thirdly, there was his commitment to the Church, especially to Holy Trinity, where he served as a church warden, PCC Member, Hall Trustee and, of course, as a teacher at the School. Worship was very important to him, not least through the Choir, which he joined as a boy-chorister in 1939 and in which he sang as a tenor for over 50 years. He always threw himself wholeheartedly into whatever activity was going on – fairs, fetes, plays and social events, and so on.

Finally, Bob was above all a dedicated family man. He married Ann in 1961, and had a daughter, two sons and three grandchildren.

At his funeral on 21^st May, his son, Tim, himself an Old Bordenian, paid an eloquent and moving tribute on behalf of all the family, during which he quoted many examples of the care, love and devotion which his father had shown throughout their lives.

Blessed with a healthy sense of humour and an outgoing nature, Bob was the one of the most companionable of men, a prominent and popular member of the whole community. His death has left a huge void in the lives of his family and countless friends.

The funeral will take place on Thursday 24th June at 1.30 pm at Silverdale Church, Silverdale, Lancs.  All are welcome in Church.  Family flowers only, but donations if wished to either the Westmorland General Cardiac Centre or to Londsdale Scouts, c/o of the Funeral Directors, Alan M. Fawcett, 71 Main Road, Bolton Le Sands, Carnforth LA5 8DL.