William Foyle
Encyclopedia
Foyles
W & G Foyle Ltd. is a bookshop at 113–119 Charing Cross Road, London, England. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf area and number of titles on display...
in 1903 with his brother, Gilbert Foyle.
The eldest son of a Shoreditch grocer, William attended Owens School
Dame Alice Owen's School
Dame Alice Owen's School is a mixed voluntary aided secondary school in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England, founded in the London Borough of Islington.-Admissions:...
and King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
with his brother Gilbert. After failing their Civil Service examinations in 1902 the brothers advertised their used textbooks for sale. They were delighted by the scale of demand so established their business as second hand booksellers, initially from their mother's kitchen table. The following year they moved to a small shop in Cecil Court
Cecil Court
Cecil Court is a pedestrian street with Victorian shop-frontages in London, England linking Charing Cross Road and St. Martin's Lane. Since the 1930s it has been known as the new Booksellers' Row and it is sometimes used as a location by film companies...
before moving again to the Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...
site in 1906.
Foyle styled himself "the Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
of books". He told absurd stories at his own expense and some of them were true. Needing money for a new window blind, he put a box by the till labelled "For the Blind". He sold books by weight at tuppence a pound. When the shop sued the pope for non-payment of a Foyles's Catholic Book Club subscription (due to an accounting error by the shop) he made sure that the press knew of it. When Hitler decreed that all Jewish books were to be burned, Foyle offered to buy them all instead.
His daughter, Christina Foyle
Christina Foyle
Christina Agnes Lilian Foyle was an English bookseller and owner of Foyles bookshop.Miss Foyle was born in London. At age 17, after leaving a Swiss finishing school, she started working at her father's bookshop, and never left...
, joined the business in 1929. She subsequently took over management of the shop upon her father's retirement in 1945.
Foyle lived with his remarkable library at Beeleigh Abbey
Beeleigh Abbey
Beeleigh Abbey near Maldon in Essex, England, was a monastery constructed in 1180 for the White Canons, otherwise known as the Norbertines or Premonstratensians...
near Maldon
Maldon, Essex
Maldon is a town on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon district and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation.Maldon is twinned with the Dutch town of Cuijk...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
. After his daughter's death his library was sold at Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
auction house for £12.6 million in July 2000. This was the highest sum ever realised by a booksale and the catalogue for the sale is valued at £50.00.