Horatio Davies

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Horatio David Davies KCMG (1842–18 September 1912) was a London businessman, politician, magistrate and a driving force behind the establishment of Pimm's as an international brandname.

Son of H. D. Davies Esq, he was educated as a poor scholar at Edward Alleyn's original 'College of God's Gift in Dulwich', founded in 1619.

[3] Horatio maintained that, as a small boy, he had seen the bones of the founder of Dulwich College, Edward Alleyn, when his tomb was moved.

[4] After completing his education at Dulwich College he was apprenticed as an engraver for seven years, but relinquished the career because it did not seem to afford a wide enough field to his activity and ambition.

[7] In the early 1870s Horatio Davies took interests with his wife's brother, Frederick Gordon, in restaurants for businessmen.

In 1880, Davies purchased the business from Frederick Sawyer who had owned it since 1865, and a chain of Pimm's Oyster Houses was franchised in 1887.

[19] Gradually, an export business was built up, so that by the time of Sir Horatio's death in 1912, Pimm's cocktail was known internationally, especially in the British Empire.

Four years later he became a member of the Court of Aldermen for Bishopsgate, and was soon chosen to serve as Sheriff of London and Middlesexin 1887.

His old school in the form of the Dulwich College Rifle Volunteer Corps (a forerunner of the present day CCF), took part in his Lord Mayor's Show in 1897.

Standing again for Rochester he topped the poll and was returned as an MP in the July 1892 general election, only to be unseated after an electoral petition in December that year.

He was much travelled, and had recently returned from a trip to South Africa before his death at Watcombe Hall, Torquay, Devon on 18 September 1912.

The estate, comprising 500 acres (208 ha), was sold in 1876 to a Nottingham banker and MP, Colonel Charles Ichabod Wright.

Davies held Colwick Hall and the lower part of the Park area for a short time only before selling it to a leisure and sporting syndicate which laid out a course for horse racing, opening it to the public in 1892.

He also owned a solid gold bowl once the property of King Thibaw Min, and an extensive assortment of rings, Oriental fetishes and other graven golden images and knick knacks.