Jack Poole, retired chairman of Keighley Laboratories - a firm he helped to build into one of the leading metallurgical analysts and testers in Britain - has died aged 80. As joint managing director he oversaw the expansion of the South Street-based firm in the 1970s and early 80s as it processed components for the world's motor, oil and aerospace industries.

He did much to rescue Keighley's architectural heritage which was disappearing under the demolisher's hammer. In his garden are bits from long-gone buildings including the old Hippodrome Theatre, Sutton Hall, Keighley's Victoria Hospital and the Mechanics Institute on North Street.

Jack also had a passion for restoring and rallying old cars, a favourite being a rare 1949 Jaguar SS-type open top tourer, one of only a handful to survive. It was perhaps wholly predictable that his career would lie in analysing metal for its faults and strengths. His father William was chief metallurgist and chemist for Daimler Cars in Coventry in the early years of the motor industry, and later took on a similar role for Bradford car manufacturer Jowett. But Jack started work as a mechanic at a Bingley garage on leaving school, before joining Keighley Laboratories just prior to World War Two and qualifying as a metallurgist.

A consortium of engineering firms in Keighley had set up the Laborato-ries as a test-bed for their products. William Poole was its first MD from 1920 until his early death at the age of 44, on his way back from America. His brother HF Poole succeeded him, and on his retirement in 1972 Jack took joint control with Fred Place. He was to retire in 1984, ending a 64-year family link with the firm.

It was while he was working his way up the ladder that he acquired his first Jaguar to celebrate his appointment as test house manager. His first 'works' car had appropriately been a Jowett - one which had been used by the works team in the Monte Carlo Rally.

His war service had lasted all of three days, after which he was recalled, and he was to co-ordinate much war work for the Ministry of Defence including testing bomb cases. For many years he lectured at Keighley College's engineering department. His interests away from work were his old cars, gardening and travelling. He'd owned sports cars from the 1930s to the 70s - all at one time - including an AC, Alvis, Riley, Jaguar and a restored Triumph Stag. A member of the Vintage Jaguar Club and Craven Old Wheels, he took part in several classic tours including driving 2,500 miles around Europe in 1993 with the Jaguar Owners Club of Great Britain.

Jack's family house, which he shared with his wife Betty, dated from the early 18th century. The garden contained much of the Victoriana he had salvaged from in and around Keighley. There was stone or ironwork from Cliffe Castle, St Peter's Church on South Street and Castle Carr near Luddenden, and a 20 foot balustrade from the faade of the old Hippo-drome on Lawkholme Crescent, which was demolished in 1961. "I think what has happened to the fine architecture of Keighley is criminal," he said. "It's easy to pull buildings down but you can never put them back up again."

He also found time to be a founder member of Bingley Round Table and to be a member of Keighley Rotary Club, as well as holding high office in the freemasonry which he felt didn't get the public acknowledgement it deserved for the volume of charity work it undertook.

He leaves a widow, Betty, who he met during WW2 when she worked at Keighley Laboratories and to whom he was married for 56 years, three sons, six grand-daughters and a grandson and seven great grandchildren. His sons all run their own businesses - John runs Bingley Antiques, Chris is chairman and MD of GAC engineering group in Halifax, and Bill, a chartered surveyor, runs McManus and Poole estate agency in Keighley.

Fittingly his final journey to a crowded Keighley Shared Church on Wednesday and to Oakworth crematorium was made in a vintage hearse, followed by a cortege of Jaguars and Daimlers.