20 JUNE 1931, Page 3

Lord Trent There was something heroic in the late Lord

Trent of Nottingham, better known as Sir Jesse Boat, who died on Saturday in Jersey, at the age of eighty-one. The son of a poor Nottingham herbalist, he was a mere boy when he had to take charge of his dead father's little shop and support the family. By *strenuous work he qualified himself as a chemist, and opened his first shop in 1877. He conceived the idea of what the Americans call a " chain store," and steadily built up what has long been the largest retail chemists' organization in the world. His health, never rolmist, broke down when he was fifty and left him a permanent invalid. But, better aided by his wife than by any other kind of partner, he continued to direct and improve his ever-expanding business, including a great drug factory, until a few years ago. He expended his wealth liberally and wisely on his native city, where the new University in its stately home in a great park is a memorial to his public spirit and good taste.

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