Denis Rooke’s great technical achievement and lasting legacy was to build the UK’s gas distribution network and unite the gas industry, making domestic gas a cheap and convenient fuel source for millions of people.
He acquired an awesome reputation as the ‘lion of British Gas’ in the 1980s as the Conservative government threatened to break up the British Gas Corporation during privatisation. His devoted employees saw him as the defender of ‘his’ gas company against the most determined of politicians. Famously he said: “Whilst I have to deal with politicians, that does not mean that I have to like them.” Eventually he struck a deal with Energy Minister Peter Walker and an Act of Parliament turned the gas transmission, distribution and retailing business from a publicly owned single monopoly into a single private-sector monopoly, British Gas plc.
Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, was among those Conservatives who would have preferred to break up the British Gas Corporation to encourage competition (a step taken ultimately in the 1990s). He reveals in his memoirs a certain awe of Sir Denis, having been on the receiving end of his championing of the gas industry, describing him as “a large, craggy, overbearing man ... treating ministers and officials alike with a mixture of distrust, dislike and contempt ... To break up the corporation in any way was a negation of his life’s work”.
After retiring from British Gas, Sir Denis devoted his talent and determination to engineering education, becoming Chancellor of Loughborough University in 1989. As President of the Fellowship of Engineering, he drove the development of its education programme and involved Fellows from industry.
He served on many national advisory committees on both energy policy and education. He was Chair of the Trustees of the Science Museum, Chair of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, and Chair of the Management Committee of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
Awarded a CBE in 1970 and knighted in 1977 for his service to the gas industry, Sir Denis was elected to the Fellowship in 1977 and as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1978. He won the newly renamed Royal Academy of Engineering’s Prince Philip Medal for engineering achievement in 1992 and the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal in 1986. He also won the Institution of Mechanical Engineers James Watt International Medal, the Institution of Chemical Engineers George E Davis Medal, and Institution of Gas Engineers Gold and Birmingham Medals, together with numerous awards and fellowships from universities and colleges. In 2010, the Academy’s annual medal for the public promotion of engineering was renamed the Rooke Award in his honour.
Sir Denis Rooke
- 1924 Born in London on 2 April
- 1944 Following education at Westminster City School and Addey and Stanhope School, graduates from University College London with a degree in mechanical and chemical engineering
- 1944 Serves with the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in India and Britain, promoted to Major
- 1949 Joins South Eastern Gas Board, later becoming Development Engineer
- 1960 Becomes Development Engineer of the Gas Council
- 1972 Appointed Deputy Chair of the Gas Council, later the British Gas Corporation
- 1976 Appointed Chair of British Gas
- 1986 Oversees privatisation and becomes Chair of British Gas plc
- 1986 Appointed President of the Fellowship of Engineering
- 1986 Becomes Chancellor of Loughborough University
- 1997 Appointed to the Order of Merit
- 2008 Dies 2 September, aged 84