KALMS, SIR (Harold) STANLEY, BARON

KALMS, SIR (Harold) STANLEY, BARON (1931– ), British businessman, communal leader, and figure in the Conservative Party. Born in London in 1931, Kalms was chairman of the Dixon Group from 1948 to 2002, which he developed from a single photographic shop into one of the biggest and best known of British high street retail chains, specializing in electronic equipment, especially televisions and stereos, computers, and household appliances. Dixons also owned a number of other well-known British retail chains in the same field, such as Currys and PCWorld. Within the Anglo-Jewish community Kalms became well known as the author of the "Kalms Report" of 1992, entitled A Time For Change, which recommended a sweeping reorganization of the financial bases of the mainstream United Synagogue. He was also the founder of the Stanley Kalms Foundation to encourage Orthodox Jewish education. In addition, Kalms was an influential figure in the administrative organization of the Conservative Party, serving from 2001 as the Party's treasurer. He was knighted in 1996 and received a life peerage in 2004. (William D. Rubinstein (2nd ed.)