Walter Gilbey

[1][2] Henry Gilbey, of Essex farming stock, had gone into innkeeping at Stansted, becoming landlord of the Bell Inn, but after the economic depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars he had to seek other employment.

The arrival of the railway put an end to this business, and Henry returned to his former occupation as landlord of the Red Lion Inn at Hockerill.

Returning to London on the declaration of peace, the pair took the advice of their eldest brother Henry, a wholesale wine-merchant, and started in the retail wine and spirits trade.

On his advice Walter and Alfred determined to push the sales of colonial, and particularly of Cape, wines, on which the duty was comparatively light.

The creation of the off-licence system by William Ewart Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1860, followed by the large reduction in the duty on French wines effected by the commercial treaty between England and France in 1861, revolutionized their trade and laid the foundation of their fortunes.

In 1893 the business was converted, for family reasons, into a private limited liability company, of which Walter Gilbey, who in the same year was created a baronet, was chairman.