Jock Campbell, Baron Campbell of Eskan

He stepped down from the post of chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation in 1983 and was replaced by Sir Henry Chilver, who remained in post until Milton Keynes Development Corporation was wound up on 1 April 1992.

In June 1973 he was awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University.

On 5 May 1971, in the House of Lords, Campbell dissociated himself from his ancestors, arguing that "maximising profits cannot and should not be the sole purpose, or even the primary purpose, of business."

The Booker Prize was launched in 1969, after the publishers Jonathan Cape suggested that Bookers might sponsor a major fiction prize. A new sponsor for the prize was announced in April 2002, the Man Group, after which it became known as the Man Booker Prize.

Jock was chairman for the Milton Keynes Development Corporation from 1967. The large, central park initially called City Park, was renamed Campbell Park in his honour. There is a memorial stone by the fountain in his honour which reads simply "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice". ("If you seek a monument, look about you", referring to the urban landscape created by his team.

On 14 January 1966, Campbell was created a life peer, by Harold Wilson, taking the title "Baron Campbell of Eskan", "of Camis Eskan in the County of Dumbarton". Camis Eskan is a large house, now flatted, just to the east of Helensburgh. In an interview with the Helensburgh and Gareloch Times immediately after he became a peer he said that "I am very proud of my connections with this part of the country. My family owned Camis Eskan from the beginning of the last century. The family grave is in the local churchyard." However he also explained that his family had sold the house 15 years earlier "because I could not have afforded to keep it up."

In British Guiana, Campbell met his foil in Cheddi Jagan. Jagan, himself the son of Indian indentured servants, quickly gained the confidence of the sugar workers, and in Guyana's first general elections in 1953 became Prime Minister.

Jock went to British Guiana for the first time to take charge of the family estates, arriving in 1934. The Campbells owned Las Penitence Wharf on the Demerara River, Georgetown, where they were agents for the Harrison line of shipping. They also owned Ogle Estate, up the East Coast from Demerara, and Albion, further Eastward in the Berbice district. In his first few months in the colony Jock worked at the family's wharf, assessing the claims made by merchants whose goods had been broached, broken or stolen.

As the son of the estate owner, Jock had enormous influence in spite of his youth and soon embarked on a mission of reform, and this became his life work. As the first step of plan, Jock urged his father and uncle to merge the family company the giant company Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co. The take-over took place in 1934, after which Jock quickly rose to chairman.

John Middleton Campbell, Baron Campbell of Eskan (8 August 1912 – 26 December 1994), known familiarly as "Jock", was the Chairman of Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co (Later Booker-McConnell) in British Guiana (now Guyana) between 1952 and 1967. He was knighted in 1957 and was created a Labour Party life peer on 14 January 1966, taking the title Baron Campbell of Eskan, of Camis Eskan in the County of Dumbarton. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Sugar Exporters Association (1950–84). He was additionally notable as chairman of Booker McConnell, Chairman of the New Statesman and Nation and the first chairman of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation.

Jock's paternal grandfather, William Middleton Campbell, was Governor of the Bank of England between 1907 and 1909, a man of great prestige. His mother Mary was of aristocratic Irish stock. Jock was born on 8 August 1912 and at the age of three, during the First World War, was sent to the opulent family seat of his mother's family, Glenstal Castle in south-west Ireland, to be safe from the bombs of the German Zeppelins. After the war, Jock returned to the family home in Kent. He later attended Eton and Oxford.

Among the principal beneficiaries of this booming trade were John Campbell (Senior) and Company, which supplied merchandise to the slave plantations along the coast of Guiana, then in Dutch hands. It was in this role of supplier that the company first began to acquire plantations along the Essequibo Coast of Guiana, from planters facing bankruptcy. By the 20th century, the company of Curtis, Campbell and Co had its established place in the British Guiana plantocracy; When Jock's great-grandfather, Colin Campbell of Colgrain, died in 1886 he left £627,000. When his grandfather, William Middleton Campbell died in 1919, he left £711,000.

It was John Campbell (Senior), Jock's great-great-grandfather, ship owner and merchant of Glasgow, who, towards the end of the 18th century, first established the fortunes of the Campbell family in the West Indies, through the slave trade. At the time, Glasgow trading houses, long-experienced in servicing the needs of North American slave plantations, were ready to capitalise on new opportunities in the sugar industry arising on the West Indies. By the 1780s they were supplying the two most important British exports to the West Indies, herring and coarse linen goods.