William Foyle
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William Foyle (1885–1963) co-founded Foyles bookshop in 1903 with his brother, Gilbert Foyle.
The eldest son of a Shoreditch grocer, William attended King's College London 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 before moving again to the Charing Cross Road site in 1906.
Foyle styled himself "the Barnum 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, 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 near Maldon, Essex. After his daughter's death his library was sold at Christie's auction house for £12.6 million in July 2000. This was the highest sum ever realised by a booksale and as of 2005 the catalogue for the sale is valued at £50.00.
