Personalities
In our long history, we’ve supplied wine and spirits to famous and infamous customers alike. Notable figures include the Romantic poet, Lord Byron; members of the royal family; prime ministers; members of the English aristocracy and visiting foreign ambassadors – all of whom passed through the shop at No.3.
Lord Byron
George Gordon, Lord Byron, the Romantic poet lived in London as a young man until social and sexual scandal forced him abroad, first to Italy and then to Greece where he died in 1824. Between 1811 and 1816, while he was still the darling of Regency London society, he regularly visited the St James’ Street shop to be weighed.
View In ArchiveBeau Brummell
George Bryan “Beau” Brummel - celebrity, fashion icon and friend of the future King George IV – was mainly famous for being famously well-dressed. That he should have so frequently visited the shop to get himself weighed says much, both about his own vanity and the standing of Berry’s premises as a fashionable destination for Regency London.
View In ArchiveNapoleon III
Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was elected President and then appointed himself Emperor of France from 1848 until 1871. Before that, while living in exile in London and a friend of George Berry, he is supposed to have used Berry’s cellars at No.3 St James’ Street for secret meetings to plot his return to power in France.
View In ArchivePhilippe de Rothschild
Baron Philippe de Rothschild, patron of artists, man of letters and racing driver among much else was also one of the top Bordeaux winegrowers that C W Berry befriended on his French wine-buying travels of the 1930s. Berry Bros stocked his Chateau Mouton Rothschild and famously, when Philippe was a refugee in London after the German occupation of France in1940, he had to be supplied with his own wine by Berry Bros.
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