May was the younger son of William May, a grocer and wine merchant, of
Cheshunt,
Hertfordshire, and his wife Julia Ann Mole. He was educated at
Cranleigh School. At the age of 16, he joined the
Prudential Assurance Company as a clerk. He was to remain with this firm until his retirement in 1931, serving as the Company Secretary from 1915 until 1931. By 1931, May was
blind in one eye and had a
cataract in the other.
Financial expert May quickly made his mark as a financial expert. During the
First World War, he was Manager of the
American Dollars Securities Committee from 1915 to 1918. This committee was set up by the government to oversee the collection of
securities held by British firms in the
United States, and to make them available to the British government in aid of the war effort.
Committee on National Expenditure In 1931, after retiring as Secretary of the Prudential Assurance Company, he was appointed by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden to oversee a committee on national expenditure. The majority report found that there was a prospective deficit of £120 million, and recommended savings of £96,578,000 for the next financial year, of which £66.6 million were to come from reductions in Unemployment Insurance and £13.6 million from cuts in education. The chairman and the members suggested by the
Conservative and
Liberal parties supported the recommendations. Two members from the
Labour Party submitted a minority report fundamentally disagreeing with the committee's recommendations. After a run on the
pound sterling raised the deficit to grow to £170 million in August 1931, Prime Minister
Ramsay MacDonald decided to implement the report's recommendations for budget cuts despite opposition from the rest of the Labour Party, leading to the collapse of
his government and the formation of a new
National Government led by MacDonald's breakaway
National Labour Organisation alongside Conservatives and Liberals.
Oversees reorganisation of iron and steel industry In early 1932, May was appointed Chairman of the
Import Duties Advisory Committee by the new Chancellor,
Neville Chamberlain. The committee oversaw the introduction and implementation of a general tariff over the next three years. As one of three members on the committee (along with Sir
Sydney Chapman and Sir
Allan Powell), May was specifically responsible for overseeing the reorganisation of the British iron and steel industry. The committee's activities were largely suspended after the outbreak of the
Second World War, but May remained chairman until 1941. ==Personal life==