Hyatt Family Tree

1911 listed as a Manager Wine and Spirit Dept Agencies Dept
living 34 Avenue Rise, Bushey.

Thresher, Oswald
London Regiment, Royal Engineers
No. 2259 Acting Sergeant, Lieutenant.

Oswald was a Lieutenant in the 16th London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles), Royal Engineers, British Army. He died in the field, on last day of WW1, and was ceremonially buried on The Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. He was made Second Lieutenant on 26Nov 1917.

The present Company of Thresher's was originally based on the two companies founded by Frederick Stanley Stowell and Samuel Bennett Burt Thresher. Thresher's: The company gets its name from Samuel Benett Burt Thresher who, in 1898, founded Thresher & Co,a firm of wine merchants based on a chain of eight shops. Four were in Fulham, with one each in Lewisham, Ladywell, Streatham and Putney. F.S. Stowell Ltd: Frederick Stanley Stowell opened his first wine shop in Ealing in 1878 and by 1893 his name had become a household word in that area.

In 1917 Thresher's was registered as a limited company, the chain then remained virtually unchanged, only growing locally, until 1938 when Samuel Bennett Burt Thresher died in Active Service. He was succeeded by Sydney Follett as managing director and H.A. Bonner as chairman. A period of rapid expansion began. Capital had increased from Đ30,000 in 1928 to Đ250,000 ten years later. The number of branches had reached 27 in 1934 and, by 1938, helped by the acquisition of the 17 shops of Watson Son & Co in1937, had risen to 63. In 1957 Thresher's was taken over by Flowers Breweries of Luton which, in turn, became a subsidiary of Whitbread & Co in 1962. The Thresher's shops were amalgamated with the 140 wine shops of F. S. Stowell, the managed off-licence group acquired by Whitbread in 1920. This took place in 1965 and the combined head offices were established at Britten Street in Chelsea. At this time, Thresher's had 265 shops in London and the South East. This Whitbread amalgamation was made up of Findlater Prentis, Arnold Perrett, Collards Higgs, Smeeds, Wine Cellars, Mackies and Agnews Liquorworld. It was not until 1972-73 that the actual shop facias were all changed to Thresher's. By 1979 there were more than 450 branches of Thresher's.

In May 1977 Head Office moved to the Great North Road, Hatfield, Herts and in September 1982 to Sefton House, Church Road, Welwyn Garden City, Herts, at which time there were about 450 branches spread over the greater part of England and Wales.

Thresher Group is the company that now brings us Thresher's, The Local, Wine Rack and Haddows (in Scotland). Together they currently own around 2000 shops and employ over 12,000 people across the country. In fact more than half the UK's population live within 10 minutes walk from one of the stores.

The above is extracted from a document compiled by researcher Charlie cook, October 2007.