page_title: Basil Smallpeice
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Basil Smallpeice / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: St. George's Church, Esher
context_page_description: Sir Basil Smallpeice, KCVO was an English accountant and businessman, who served as a director of several companies, including the state owned airline British Overseas Airways Corporation, the shipping company Cunard and the mining based conglomerate Lonrho.
  Smallpeice, as financial comptroller and later, managing director, was one of the board of BOAC who was instrumental in purchasing and introducing jet powered aircraft into passenger service. He was responsible for the purchase of the de Havilland Comet, the Boeing 707 and the Vickers VC10. His time at BOAC included the introduction of the Comet 1, the subsequent Comet disasters where metal fatigue caused the in-flight destruction of three aircraft, with a loss of 99 passengers and crew, the re-introduction of the Comet 4 and the inauguration of the first jet-powered transatlantic services in October 1958. He would later be instrumental in the purchase of the Boeing 707, which introduced the first by-pass turbofan engine, the Rolls-Royce Conway into passenger service.
context_section_description: Smallpeice married twice, firstly, he married Kathleen (Kay) Singleton in 1931. Kay was a school friend of Smallpeice's sister who was some four years younger than Basil. He also had a younger brother, who was five years younger. Kay was diagnosed with an illness of the blood in December 1968 and following a second bout of illness, passed away on 2 February 1973, following 41 years of marriage.
  He married for a second time on 2 November 1973 to Rita Burns, who had been his secretary at Cunard, and they remained married until Basil's death on 12 July 1992.
  Smallpeice was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1961 for services to the sovereign, this was for his work in organising flights for the Queen and other members of the Royal family whilst with BOAC.
  Smallpeice was also honoured by various other countries, and was made a member of the National Order of the Cedar by Lebanon in 1955. The United States honoured Smallpeice by giving him the Key to the City of San Francisco in 1959. He was also honoured with a Pioneers Award for his contributions to the development of container shipping by the Containerization Institute in New York during 1981.
  His interests outside of industry resulted in him serving as chairman of The English Speaking Union of the Commonwealth from 1965 to 1968, succeeding Lord Baillieu. He served his local communities as chairman of the Leatherhead New Theatre (Thorndike) Trust from 1966 to 1974 and after moving to Cobham, was President of the Friends of Cobham cottage hospital from 1987 and President of the Friends of St. George's Church, Esher, also from 1987. He was a member of the London clubs Athenaeum and Boodle's, and of the Melbourne Club in Melbourne, Australia, and enjoyed golfing and gardening as recreation activities.
  Her Majesty The Queen was represented at Smallpeice's funeral by Lieutenant-Commander Sir Russell Wood, an Extra Gentleman Usher in the Royal Household.
caption: St. George's Church, Esher. Smallpeice was President of the Friends of St. George's Church
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-P8", "Image DateTime": "2007:01:25 12:01:00", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "192", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:01:25 12:01:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:01:25 12:01:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}