Sir Alfred George Beech Owen (8 April 1908–29 October 1975) was the son of Alfred Ernest Owen (who in 1910 became the sole-proprietor of the British engineering company Rubery Owen & Co). Sir Alfred was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and after the death of his father in 1929 he became, jointly with his brother, managing director of the Rubery Owen Group.
Following his father's death, Owen left his studies at Cambridge to take over the Rubery Owen Company, the biggest private family business in Britain. Besides being Chairman and Joint Managing Director of Rubery Owen and Co. Ltd. he was also on the Board of ninety nine companies and Chairman of over eighty.
He held thirty voluntary offices in social work, twenty in church work as well as being a lay reader in the Anglican Church for much of his life.
Sir Alfred was prominent in the local affairs of his home town, The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, serving as a councillor (1937–1974), mayor (1951) and Alderman. Between 1951-52 he was Mayor of Sutton Coldfield and received his Knighthood in 1961. In 1970 Alderman Sir Alfred Owen was made Freeman of the Borough of Sutton Coldfield, and was the last person to hold this honour.
Owen had a passion for racing cars and track events. He sponsored the Formula One BRM racing cars and received the Ferodo trophy as the man who had done the most for British racing in 1963. He was proprietor of the BRM motor racing team from the early-1950s to 1974, when it was passed to Louis Stanley, who had married his sister Jean.
His father had bought the New Hall Manor estate in Sutton Coldfield in 1923 which remained the Owen family home until Sir Alfred's death in 1975.
Sir Alfred died on 29 October 1975 aged 67, leaving New Hall empty. He is buried with his family in Sutton Coldfield Cemetery, next to Good Hope Hospital on Rectory Road. The Rubery Owen Group spent several years looking for a use for New Hall, including offering it to the National Trust, before it was eventually put up for sale.
A blue plaque appears at New Hall, now a hotel, in recognition of the occupation by Sir Alfred.
Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton, is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south of Lichfield, 7 miles southwest of Tamworth and 7 miles east of Walsall.
British Racing Motors (BRM) was a British Formula One motor racing team. Founded in 1945 and based in the market town of Bourne in Lincolnshire, it participated from 1951 to 1977, competing in 197 grands prix and winning seventeen. BRM won the constructors' title in 1962 when its driver Graham Hill became world champion. In 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1971, BRM came second in the constructors' competition.
New Hall Manor is a medieval manor house, now used as a hotel, in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, England.
The New Hall Estate is the older of the two major private housing estates named after New Hall Manor in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands in England. The newer being New Hall Manor Estate.
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Rubery Owen is a British engineering company which was founded in 1884 in Darlaston, West Midlands.
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Edwin Hardwick Moore was a British businessman and High Sheriff of the West Midlands for 1975–76.
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Louis Thomas Stanley was the chair of the Formula One team BRM. He was married to Jean, the sister of Sir Alfred Owen. Owen was proprietor of the BRM team from the early 1950s to 1974.
The British Racing Motors V8 was a four-stroke, naturally aspirated, 1.5 L (92 cu in), V-8 racing engine, designed, developed and built by British Racing Motors (BRM) to compete in Formula One racing (although an enlarged 2.0 L version was used for sports car racing. It was built between 1962 and 1967, and came in two version; the P56, and the P60.