| Activity | John Boot was born on the 19th January 1889, the eldest child and only son of Jesse and Florence Boot. He attended The Leys School in Cambridge between 1901 and 1906. He then attended Jesus College, University of Cambridge. On returning to Nottingham, John Boot joined the Territorial Army and was gazetted as a Lieutenant. John officially began working for Boots in 1909, although there is evidence he took on some responsibilty before that in 1908 when he acted as Chairman in his father's absence.
John married Margaret Joyce Pyman on the 10th June 1914 at St George's Church, Hanover Square, London. Also in 1914, John was commissioned in the Sherwood Foresters and was sent to France to fight in World War One, he was appointed Transport Officer of the Battalion. He left the Western Front on 27th June 1915 with varicose veins in both legs, he thereafter served with the reserve battalions, mostly in the UK, though later on he had a special job at GHQ in France.
After the end of the war, John returned to Nottingham where he began to play an increasingly prominent part in the management of the Company and in 1920 was appointed Vice-Chairman, at the insistance of his father who sold the company to an Amercian investor. John Boot continued his father's expansion of the company and he took a keen interest in the welfare of his staff. Under his leadership, the Beeston site was purchased, factories built and the number of Boots stores more than doubled.
John also held a number of other significant titles, for example, President of the Nottingham General Hospital (28th March 1928), Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence for the North Midlands (1939), President of University College Nottingham (1944), First Chancellor of University of Nottingham (3rd May 1949), President of the Nottingham Juvenile Organisations Committee, post WWI, Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, President of Nottingham Chamber of Commerce and Nottinghamshire Agricultural Society and Justice of the Peace for the City of Nottinghamshire. He also received a KBE in recognition of social and educational services in 1954.
In 1954, when ill health forced him to resign his chairmanship of the business, Boots turnover was five times that reached in the peak year of 1920. After leaving the Company he was invited to become the Company’s first Honorary President.
He lived for many years at Lenton House in Nottingham, but in 1947 had taken up residence at Hambleton Hall near Oakham where he lived until 1954 when he sold it and made his new home at The Grove, St Lawrence in Jersey.
Lord Trent died at his home in Jersey on Thursday 8th March 1956 aged 67. |