Wilfrid Newton


Sir Charles Wilfrid Newton, CBE was managing director of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway Corporation in the 1980s and London Regional Transport in the 1990s.

History

Charles Wilfrid Newton was born on 11 December 1928 in South Africa, and was educated at schools in Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand. Starting out as an accountant in industry, he became group managing director, and subsequently the chief executive of Turner & Newall.

Hong Kong and MTR

In 1983, he left Turner & Newall to join the Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway Corporation as chairman and chief executive. The MTR was founded in 1975 as a government owned statutory corporation to build and operate a mass transit system for the then British colony. The MTR had just opened its first railway line connecting Hong Kong Island to Kowloon in 1979.
Newton led the building of a new line on Hong Kong island itself – the Island line, which connected the Western district to Chai Wan. In May 1985, Newton presided over the opening ceremony of the line at Tai Koo, with a plaque unveiled by Governor of Hong Kong Sir Edward Youde. Following this, a second harbour tunnel to carry increased numbers of passenger traffic opened in 1989.
Thanks to high ridership and property development including shopping malls and development built over railway depots - the MTR was being run without government subsidy. Newton also chaired the Hong Kong Futures Exchange from 1986–89, as well as becoming a non executive director of HSBC.

London and London Regional Transport

In 1989, Newton was invited to be become chairman and chief executive of London Regional Transport, and chairman of London Underground.
Newton’s major project was the implementation of the Jubilee Line Extension – the first major extension to the Underground in 20 years. Experts from Hong Kong including MTR architect Roland Paoletti were recruited to progress the multi billion pound project – which eventually opened in 1999. Newton also worked on the upgrade and modernisation of London Underground, branding the Tube network “an appalling shambles” at a seminar on the future of London in 1991, noting that “The infrastructure has been neglected for 30 years”.
However the recession in the early 1990s cut ticket revenue, which was exacerbated by stop-go investment and Treasury budget cuts by around 30 per cent between 1993 and 1996 – making it difficult to progress the upgrade programme. By March 1993, Newton authorised managers to blame deteriorating services and cancellations on broken Government pledges. Newton himself appeared on television after the November 1993 Budget and criticised the funding of London Regional Transport.
Due to retire at 65, Newton was unable to step down as Chairman of London Transport in 1994 as the Treasury vetoed his chosen replacement. Newton eventually stepped down in September 1994, replaced by Peter Ford.
Owing to his work in Hong Kong, he was appointed CBE in 1988, before being knighted in 1993. He died on November 28, 2012, aged 83.