John Blundell Maple

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Sir John Blundell Maple, 1st Baronet (1 March 1845 – 24 November 1903) was an English business magnate. His father, John Maple (d. 1900), had a small furniture shop in Tottenham Court Road, London, and his business began to develop about the time that his son entered it.

The practical management soon devolved on the younger Maple, under whom it attained colossal dimensions. The firm became a limited liability company, with a capital of two millions, in 1890, with Mr. Maple as chairman. He entered Parliament as Conservative member for Dulwich in 1887, serving until his death in 1903, was knighted in 1892, and was made a baronet in 1897. He was the developer of the Great Central Hotel at Marylebone station, which opened in 1899.

He was the owner of a large stud of race-horses, and from 1885 onwards won many important races, appearing at first under the name of "Mr. Childwick". His public benefactions included a hospital and a recreation ground to the city of St. Albans, near which his residence, Childwickbury Manor, was situated, and the rebuilding, at a cost of more than L 50,000, of University College Hospital, London. In 1896, his only surviving daughter married Baron Hermann von Eckardstein of the German Embassy.

The Maples furniture business continued for many years, until it went bankrupt in 1997 and was taken over by the retailer Allders.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by John Morgan Howard	Member of Parliament for Dulwich 1887–1903	Succeeded by Frederick Rutherfoord Harris