Lyndall Fownes Urwick (March 3, 1891-December 5, 1983) was an influential business consultant and thinker in the United Kingdom. He is recognized for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive theory of administration. He wrote a book called The Elements of Business Administration, published in 1943. With Luther Gulick, he founded the academic journal Administrative Science Quarterly. is the 62nd day of the year (63rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... Henri Fayol (born 1841 in Istanbul; died 1925 in Paris) was a French management theorist. ... Luther Halsey III Gulick (January 17, 1892 in Osaka – January 10, 1993 in New York) was an expert on public administration. ... Administrative Science Quarterly, founded in 1956, is one of the most eminent academic journals in the field of organizational studies. ...

Lyndall Urwick was born in Worcestershire, the son of a partner in Fownes Brothers, a long-established glove-making firm. He was educated at Repton School and New College, Oxford, where he read History. He saw active service in the trenches during the First World War, rising to the rank of Major, and being awarded the Military Cross. Though he did not himself attend the military Staff College at Camberley, his respect for military training would affect his outlook on management in later life. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

After the war, he joined his father's business of Fownes Brothers. He was then recruited by Seebohm Rowntree, head of the York chocolate company and progressive philanthropist. Urwick's role involved assisting the modernisation of the company, bringing to bear his own thinking which had two main influences. One was the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor with its concept of scientific management, and the other, counterbalancing it in its emphasis on the humanity of management was Mary Parker Follett, for whom he had great admiration. Urwick's own prolific writings on management truly began in this period. Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree often known simply as Seebohm Rowntee (7 July 1871 - 7 October 1954) was a British sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist. ... Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) was a social worker, consultant, and author of books on democracy, human relations, and management. ...

His growing reputation as a British thinker on management and administration won him appointment in 1928 as Director of the International Management Institute in Geneva. The Institute may have proven short-lived, closing in 1933, but it provided Urwick the opportunity not only to lecture widely but to produce his books The Meaning of Rationalisation and The Management of Tomorrow. It was also the time that he became particularly keen to promote the writings of Henri Fayol to an English audience.

When Urwick returned to Britain, he established a management consultancy, Urwick Orr and Partners which came to be one of the leading companies of its type in the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time, his intellectual interests continued. An increasing concern of his was the lack of management education in Britain. He was involved in the very earliest discussions for what would become, in 1948, the Administrative Staff College. His own view of the education required did not accord with the College as it was finally established, which concentrated on a three-month course for established executives. He would have preferred something much closer to the model of the American business school, involving a longer course and aimed at pre-experience students. It was a continuing frustration for Urwick that England's two ancient universities failed to promote management education. Henley Management College is an English triple accredited business school based at Greenlands, near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. ... A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in Business Administration. ...

In later years, Lyndall Urwick retired to Australia, where he died in 1983. His papers were donated to the Administrative Staff College, by then re-named Henley Management College. Henley Management College is an English triple accredited business school based at Greenlands, near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. ...