John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson was a British architectural designer and businessman who caused a major political scandal when his use of bribery was disclosed in 1972.
31 Facts About John Poulson
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John Poulson came from a strict Methodist family and inherited a strong faith which stressed the importance of self-help.
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John Poulson did badly at school and at Leeds College of Art but nevertheless was articled to a Pontefract firm of architects, Garside and Pennington.
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John Poulson left to found his own architecture practice with financial backing from his father.
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John Poulson never registered with the ARCUK, later claiming "I was too busy to complete my examinations".
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John Poulson soon began to cultivate contacts in the local borough council and officials at the larger West Riding County Council.
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Work soon began to arrive and John Poulson told friends that he was "on his way".
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John Poulson became politically involved with the National Liberals, although he never let political differences stop him from making "friends" who were in charge of commissioning public buildings.
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John Poulson obtained a medical exemption from wartime service in 1939.
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John Poulson was thus well placed to expand his business throughout the wartime years.
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John Poulson was a workaholic and demanded the same commitment from his staff, dismissing staff who would not work his way.
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John Poulson revolutionised the accepted architectural method of completing a design then handing it over for costing, planning and building.
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John Poulson developed a combined architecture and design practice, an all-in-one service which employed all the separate disciplines in integrated teams.
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John Poulson later admitted that the practice expanded "beyond my wildest dreams" and offices were opened in London, Middlesbrough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh, Beirut, and Lagos, Nigeria.
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In 1958, the National Liberal MP Sir Herbert Butcher advised his friend John Poulson to set up a servicing company to win business for his architect's practice.
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John Poulson won other public sector work in the North East, such as Sunderland Police Station.
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John Poulson found a useful contact in Andrew Cunningham, a senior figure in both the General and Municipal Workers Union and the Labour Party in North East England.
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John Poulson was in a good position to gain commissions from the nationalised industries, partly due to his having offered gifts to many civil servants when they were relatively junior and calling upon them for a return of gratitude years later.
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When Tunbridge became Estates and Rating Surveyor for BR Southern Region, John Poulson moved on to contracts at Waterloo railway station, Cannon Street station and East Croydon station.
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John Poulson was appointed by Pottinger as architect in charge of the Aviemore project.
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John Poulson was Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Liberal Council from 1961 and frequently hosted National Liberal events in London at which he met senior government ministers.
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John Poulson made contact with the Labour MP Albert Roberts.
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John Poulson was increasingly interested in obtaining commissions outside Britain in the mid-1960s.
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The Conservative MP John Cordle had extensive contacts in West Africa and after helping on several small contracts, in 1965 became a consultant to Poulson.
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However, it was consuming more contract work than was becoming available, and John Poulson resorted to tackling these difficulties by bribing and corrupting local councillors, local authority officials and civil servants at all levels.
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John Poulson's generosity drew the comment from Muir Hunter QC during the bankruptcy proceedings that "[i]n fact, Mr John Poulson, you were distributing largesse like Henry VIII".
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On 22 June 1973, John Poulson was arrested and charged with corruption in connection with the award of building contracts.
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The John Poulson scandals did much to force the House of Commons to initiate a Register of Members' Interests.
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John Poulson's bankruptcy was discharged, with creditors receiving 10p in the pound, in 1980.
30.
John Poulson died in the General Infirmary in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, on 31 January 1993.
31.
The John Poulson programme was banned by the then regulator, the ITA, even though its members had not seen it.