My friend and former colleague George Thomason, who has died aged 89, was Montague Burton professor of industrial relations at Cardiff University between 1969 and 1984.
He developed the subject with a series of academic textbooks and promoted the department to be a crucial part of the economic and social science faculty of the university. The department grew under his leadership and, with his encouragement of academic talent as well as an infectious sense of humour, he was well regarded by staff and students alike. He was a member of court and council of the university from 1974 to 2000.
George also served with distinction on several wages councils between 1967 and 1974, and was an arbitrator with Acas between 1967 and 2006, settling many industrial disputes, not least the bakers’ dispute of 1974 that made the front page of the Guardian. On being asked how he had solved such a significant dispute, he replied, “Well, I like bread.”
George was born at Outgate Inn, near Hawkshead, Lancashire. His mother, Eva, was a former domestic servant, and his father, George, had a smallholding. From Kelsick grammar school, George did national service in the army before going to Sheffield University.
His academic career included posts in University College, Swansea, Churchill College, Cambridge, and visiting professorships in Massey University, New Zealand, Lancaster University and the School of Public Administration, Dublin, as well as many appointments as external examiner to universities in the UK and abroad. He also served as chief examiner in industrial relations for the Institute of Personnel Management and Chartered Institute of Transport.
George was a precursor of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of industrial relations and management studies that has become so fashionable today. He anticipated many of the theoretical and methodological innovations that have occurred within the field by absorbing relevant elements of contemporary social science thinking into his research and writing. In this sense, his work embodied the intellectual openness and pluralism characteristic of his field.
On the basis of his experience he was appointed to the doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives pay review bodies between 1979 and 1995. He remarked that it was like an old boys’ reunion as several of his former students presented evidence as general secretaries of professions allied to medicine. His academic and public service was recognised when he was appointed CBE in 1982.
He married Jean Horsley in 1953 and they had two children, Sian and Geraint. Sian died in 2012. George is survived by Jean, Geraint and three grandchildren, Megan, Samuel and Rebecca.
