Obituary: Howard Davies, businessman

The youngest of four boys, Mr Davies was born in the village of Little Fenton, near Church Fenton, before his family moved to Leeds in 1928. A keen cricketer in his teens, he played for Kirkstall Educational Cricket Club, the oldest in Leeds.

He left school at 15, having won a scholarship to Leeds College of Art, and then joined a local printer as a graphic artist.

In 1939 he was baptised into the Brethren Church at Fenton Street in Leeds and for the next 80 years his faith was his guiding light. In his 20s he established the Leeds Male Voice Gospel Choir and conducted it for five years, during which it toured the UK.

In 1940 he enlisted in an Army Noncombatant Corps based in Denby, South Wales, before injury led to his discharge. In 1945, following a short spell with the Leeds-based packaging company, Roberts Mart, he took up a graphic artist position with an advertising agency in the city. He would remain with the company for the next 50 years, eventually becoming its managing director and then chairman.

To celebrate his 90th birthday in 2012, the chief executive of Asda presented him with an award for services “above and beyond the call of duty”.

Away from work, from which he retired in 1995, he was a keen Rotarian and helped set up Leeds Flower Fund Homes. He was also responsible for raising funds for Wheatfields Hospice in its early years.

Latterly a resident of Ilkley, he is survived by his three children, eight grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren. Margaret, his wife of 69 years, died three years ago.