Frederick Leathers, 1st Viscount Leathers

Leathers was born at 47, Bromley Street, Stepney ("London's poor East End district"), son of carpenter Robert Leathers, of Stowmarket, Suffolk, and Emily Jane, née Seaman.

[1][2][3] He left school in 1898 at the age of 15 to work with Steamship Owners Coal Association (later merged with William Cory & Son), becoming managing director in 1916.

He served in the management of the Pacific and Orient Lines, where he came to the attention of Winston Churchill, from 1931 a director of the firm.

He presided over 30 or 40 companies...I soon perceived that Frederick Leathers was the central brain and controlling power of this combination.

He was raised to the peerage as Baron Leathers, of Purfleet in the County of Essex, in 1941, and appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1943.