Obituary: Maurice Oldfield

Oldfield (pictured left) was born in London on 5 July 1930, the son of Herbert and Katherine Oldfield. After education at the London School of Economics and National Service in the Royal Navy, he joined Proctor & Gamble, becoming UK pensions manager at the firm in 1956, before moving to Remington Rand as pensions manager in 1961.

From 1965 until 1990, he was group pensions manager of Allied Breweries, with responsibility for pension arrangements for businesses in France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, East Africa, the US and Canada - and over 500 pension schemes of companies acquired in the UK were incorporated into the main fund, including those of J. Lyons & Company.

He became a fellow of the Pensions Management Institute in 1976, chairman of National Association of Pension Funds (the organisation now known as the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association) in 1982 and the first chairman of the European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP). He has also been chairman of the Pre-Retirement Association and chairman of PARITY, the body first formed in 1986 as the Campaign for Equal State Pension Ages.

In 1980, he established Kontax, as a company within Allied Breweries, to provide pension schemes advice to small brewers, a business which he subsequently purchased and, after his retirement, enlarged to include schemes of small companies other than brewers.

While Kontax was sold to Abbey National in 1995, its activities in trusteeship and pension documentation were retained in another company, Understanding & Communication Limited, which Oldfield had established in 1982.

Oldfield was the author of the five editions of Understanding Pension Schemes and editor of the Pensions Management Institute Handbook. He contributed numerous articles to pensions magazines and newspapers.

He was involved with The Pensions Archive Trust from its inception and was appointed a director in 2005. He retired from this role in 2008.

He leaves a widow, Annina, and two sons and two daughters.