Felix William Spiers

Felix William Spiers[1] (born London, England 1832, died Paris, France 1911) was a British restaurateur and hotelier.

After his death his wife, Constance Albertine Spiers, donated money to the town of Belle-Ile, an island off the coast of Brittany, for a lifeboat which was named after him.

[2] His father was Felix Theodore Benjamin Augustus Spiers, born at Calais, in 1797, a shipbroker and merchant, agent in London for the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company.

In 1851 Felix William sailed to Melbourne to join the gold rush where he was a wine merchant, having acquired a publican's licence in 1857.

He set up in business at George Coppin and Gustavus Brooke's Theatre Royal, Melbourne with George Hennelle, but Hennelle[3] was badly injured by a falling Post Office wall in 1859 and replaced by 25 years old Christopher Pond who was a son of John Pond, a Customs Officer from Essex, England.

It was intended to have a collection of art works inside and to be a cultural centre of Melbourne of that time [5] They tried to bring Charles Dickens to Australia for his public reading but failed.

They began with the concession at the Metropolitan Railway's just-opened Farringdon Street Station where they sold "buns and other ready goods".