Strand
Hotel Limited was incorporated on 31
October 1907 with some 4,000 shareholders.
Created by the Salmon & Gluckstein
families it was established to fund the
building of the Strand Palace Hotel in
London. This hotel company had no legal
association with J. Lyons & Co until
1922 when they acquired shares in this
enterprise. Then, with its control of the
Deferred Shares, and the structure of its
Articles of Association, J. Lyons & Co
effectively had control of the hotel
company. Its directors were common to both
Lyons and Stand Hotel Limited. In 1968
Stand Hotel Limited changed its name to
Strand Hotels Limited in a very belated
move to reflect the much wider hotel
group. By then it was one of the largest
hotel groups in the country with the
Cumberland Hotel the largest in
Europe.
Following
the successful opening of the Strand
Palace Hotel the company (Strand Hotel
Limited) built the Regent Palace Hotel
near Piccadilly Circus and although it did
not have en suite toilet facilities its
occupancy rates were among the highest of
all their hotels. They then acquired the
Royal Palace Hotel in Kensington High
Street and in 1933 built the magnificent
Cumberland Hotel near London's Marble
Arch. In 1968 Lyons acquired the whole
share capital of Strand Hotel Limited and
it thus became a wholly owned
subsidiary.
After the
Second World War there was considerable
redevelopment in the major UK cities and
Lyons embarked on a large hotel building
programme. Albany hotels were built in
Birmingham (1962), Glasgow (1973),
Nottingham (1969), Havant (1973), Rugby
(1971) and Wakefield (1972). A large hotel
in Amsterdam was built in co-operation
with KLM and hotels in Paris and Siena
were acquired. They built the Ariel Hotel
at London's Heathrow Airport and
progressively bought many smaller hotels
in London and extended them. A heritage
hotel group of 17 hotels was bought
piecemeal in areas such as Pitlochry,
Bowness-on-Windermere, Stratford-on-Avon,
Banbury, Chester, Coventry and Harrogate.
The largest post war development was the
Tower Hotel which overlooked Tower Bridge,
probably the finest hotel site in the
Capital.
By the
late 1970s the company's fortunes took a
downward turn and as a consequence the
hotel division was sold. With the
exception of the Tower Hotel, the hotel
chain was bought by Trust House Forte for
a song in January 1977. It had been the
jewel in the crown of all the Lyons
businesses and there was much weeping on
the directors floor that month. A much
fuller account of the hotel business is
included in, The First Food Empire - A
History of J. Lyons & Co.
©
Peter
Bird 2002
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