William Vestey, 1st Baron Vestey

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William Vestey, 1st Baron Vestey Bt (1859 - 10 December 1940), was an English shipping magnate. In 1876 at the age of seventeen, he was sent to Chicago by his father Samuel Vestey, a provisioner of Liverpool, England.

William managed a meat canning factory that was financed by his father. In 1915 to 1918 the Vestey families moved to Chicago then to Argentina and back to England. During World War I the company he founded with his brother, the Blue Star Line (now known as Vestey Group, with Blue Star now part of P&O Nedlloyd), was a major supplier of Argentine beef to England, and it was for this service to the wartime provisioning of England that William Vestey was made a Baron.

Vestey's cattle station in Australia was the focus of a landmark strike in the 1960s, the Gurindji strike, which was instrumental in Indigenous Australians regaining rights to their land.

Vestey was made a Baronet [1] on 21 June 1913 and Baron Vestey on 20 June 1922. He was succeeded by Samuel Vestey, 2nd Baron Vestey (1882-1954).

The first Lady Vestey died in 1923. Vestey then married Evelene Brodstone (later Evelyn Vestey) of Superior, Nebraska on 1 August 1924. She had been working as a stenographer with the Vestey Meat Packing Plant in Chicago, where she was spotted by Vestey's brother. She would rise through the company, eventually becoming the highest paid female executive in the world. On 24th July 1941 the 2nd Lady Vestey was buried at Evergreen Cemetery of Superior in Nebraska USA.