Albert Henry Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield, TD, PC (8 August 1874 – 4 November 1948), born Albert Henry Knattriess, was a British-American businessman who was managing director, then chairman of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) from 1910 to 1933 and chairman of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) from 1933 to 1947.

Although born in Britain, his early career was in the United States, where, at a young age, he held senior positions in the developing tramway systems of Detroit and New Jersey.

[1] In 1888, at the age of 14, Stanley left school and went to work as an office boy at the Detroit Street Railways Company, which ran a horse-drawn tram system.

[3][4] Stanley was a naval reservist and, during the brief Spanish–American War of 1898, he served in the United States Navy as a landsman in the crew of USS Yosemite alongside many others from Detroit.

The cost of constructing three new lines in just a few years had put the company in a precarious monetary position, and income needed to be increased to pay the interest on its loans.

[4] In July 1910, Stanley took the integration of the group further, when he persuaded previously reluctant American investors to approve the merger of the three tube railways into a single company.

[28] Stanley also planned extensions of the existing Underground Group's lines into new, undeveloped districts beyond the central area to encourage the development of new suburbs and new commuter traffic.

Lloyd George had previously promised this role to Sir Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook), Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne.

[1] At the 1918 general election, Stanley was opposed by Frederick Lister, the President of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers, in a challenge over the government's policy on war pensions.

Back at the Underground Group, Stanley returned to his role as managing director and also became its chairman, replacing Lord George Hamilton.

[n 3] He and Pick reactivated their expansion plans, and one of the most significant periods in the organisation's history began, subsequently considered to be its heyday and sometimes called its "Golden Age".

The City and South London Railway was reconstructed with larger diameter tunnels to take modern trains between 1922 and 1924 and extended to Morden in 1926.

[19] In addition, a programme of modernising many of the Underground's busiest central London stations was started; providing them with escalators to replace lifts.

[43] By the middle of the 1920s, the organisation had expanded to such an extent that a large, new headquarters building was constructed at 55 Broadway over St James's Park station.

Ashfield aimed for regulation that would give the UERL group protection from competition and allow it to take substantive control of the LCC's tram system; Morrison preferred full public ownership.

[49] As Ashfield had done with shareholders in 1910 over the consolidation of the three UERL controlled tube lines, he used his persuasiveness to obtain their agreements to the government buy-out of their stock.

You cannot conceive I would be guilty of such folly as to suggest to you in a matter in which my whole life has been wrapped, that you should transfer your interests to a board subject to political interference, that could play ducks and drakes with your investments.

[57][n 4] Following a reorganisation of public transportation by the Labour government of Clement Attlee, the LPTB was scheduled to be nationalised along with the majority of British railway, bus, road haulage and waterway concerns from 1 January 1948.

[1] His "intuitive understanding of his fellow men" gave him "presence, which allowed him to dominate meetings effortlessly" and "inspired loyalty, devotion even, among his staff".

[1] During his near forty-year tenure as managing director and chairman of the Underground Group and the LPTB, Ashfield oversaw the transformation of a collection of unconnected, competing railway, bus and tram companies, some in severe financial difficulties, into a coherent and well managed transport organisation, internationally respected for its technical expertise and design style.

Transport historian Christian Wolmar considers it "almost impossible to exaggerate the high regard in which LT was held during its all too brief heyday, attracting official visitors from around the world eager to learn the lessons of its success and apply them in their own countries."

"It represented the apogee of a type of confident public administration ... with a reputation that any state organisation today would envy ... only made possible by the brilliance of its two famous leaders, Ashfield and Pick.