John started his career in the aircraft industry in 1953 when he won an engineering scholarship to the de Havilland (DH) Aeronautical Technical School, starting first at the Chester plant and from 1955 at the Hatfield DH headquarters. His first employment after his apprenticeship was as a structural engineer at the de Havilland Propellor division (later Hawker Siddely Dynamics), developing Firestreak and Redtop air-to-air missiles.

In 1964, John was appointed as a propulsion engineer at the DH aircraft division working on future developments and particularly VSTOL projects in conjunction with Dornier of Germany and Rolls Royce in Derby, England. The work involved a significant amount of travel both at home and abroad and John was in his element deploying his structural, propulsion and testing skills. He also contributed to the design of the very first Airbus, the A300, which was being developed in the department.

After some 20 years working in the aircraft industry, John made a major career change by joining the container and associated equipment leasing company Sea Containers in London.

Never one to be daunted by anything structural, his first job was not in the office, but in Oporto, Portugal, to commission a 150ft high, 30 ton capacity container crane. He did this so successfully that he was soon appointed as the lead engineer for the company's crane leasing programme and worked closely with crane maker Liebherr both in Germany and Ireland.

Sea Containers was always at the forefront of container innovation and John was able to make major contributions in the development and production of many container types, particularly the more technical designs such as refrigerated and tank containers. After only six years at Sea Containers, John was appointed General Manager of Engineering, responsible for all container and associated equipment engineering matters.

After 20 years at Sea Containers and having travelled hundreds of thousands of miles within five continents on company business, John decided to set up his own company, Seagull Technology, in 1994.

John continued to apply his knowledge of the container industry to various projects, acting as the lead consultant for a tank container factory in China and working with others to provide container technology transfer for container manufacturing projects in various countries. He also diversified into trading container parts for a Hong Kong-based company.

For several years, he was Chairman of the British Standards ISO TC 104 committee, which represented the UK in maintaining universal container standards.

He also joined forces with another container engineer and former Sea Containers colleague, David Tingle, to compile a 10,000 word, three-part article, titled The History of Container Manufacturing for a leading trade magazine.

John said that he had retired sometime in 2010 but in truth he hardly ever stopped working until ill health intervened.

John is survived by his wife Janet and daughters Jackie, Karen and Suzanne to whom we offer our condolences. He will be deeply missed by his many friends in the container industry.