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Page 46
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Ralph Murfitt
• A Norfolk farmer's son who built and sold his own enormously successful business, Ralph Murfitt is now chairman of Metalair Ltd and holds patents in his own name for seven aspects of bulk vehicle design—one an aeration valve with performance and anti-pollution characteristics which have brought overseas competitors knocking at his door.
Leaving a vehicle bodybuilding apprenticeship uncompleted, the young Ralph Murfitt volunteered for the RAF in 1940 and after a round-the-world war as a marine craft inspector he started a farm vehicle and trailer business.
In 1952 he plunged into bulk bodies, designing his first pneumatic-discharge vehicle, and then weathered a tough period when bulk was slow to catch on. But by 1958 Ralph Murfitt Ltd was the largest producer of rotary-feed and pneumatic-discharge vehicles in the UK.
His Wisbech factory grew from 10,000 to 130,000 sq ft in eight years and in 1966 he sold a half-share to Associated British Maltsters for fi-m. Two years later he sold them the rest for an even bigger sum, but after policy differences he resigned and vowed never to enter bulk transport again.
He went into property in a small way (he owns a hotel in his favourite Blakeney) and into fashion shops, now being extended into an Eastern Counties chain. But bulk claimed him back, in the shape of an offer from English and Overseas Investments Ltd to join them as a director and take the chair at Metalair—which has recently moved to a spanking new model factory at Sutton Bridge in his native fens.
Ralph Murfitt has business interests in South Africa, Sweden and on the Continent but is intensely patriotic: he feels the British underrate themselves, and wishes the SMMT was more marketing conscious. He sees great scope for our bulk bodywork abroad; the USA is actively interested and he believes British low-pressure• discharge systems are very saleable against Continental high-pressure types. But our exporting effort is hampered, he feels, by a lack of mutual trust in the British motor industry.
Mr Murfitt brings a refreshing breath of the East Anglian great outdoors into business life —and his enthusiasms are expressed with a trace of long-vowelled Norfolk brogue. With five children aged 12 to 24 he is very much a family man; he is also a dedicated golfer and a keen collector of silver and old coins. A man of broad interests, considerable humanity and outstanding talent. B.C.