Bernard Lewis (entrepreneur)

He was born on 10 February 1926, and educated at the Jewish Free School, and Northern Polytechnic Institute. He helped in his parents’ greengrocer as a child and from that experience gained skills like learning how to price stock, understand what customers wanted and reduce waste.[1] He served in the RAF from 1944 to 1945.[2]

Lewis opened his first fruit and vegetable shop in the North London area (on Holloway Road) at the age of 20 [3] and began selling clothing, primarily blouses and skirts, then dresses, in the 1940s.[1] His first clothes shop was in Mare Street, Hackney.[2]

During the 1970s, he launched a chain of clothing stores, later called Chelsea Girl.[4]

Lewis also founded Lewis Separates.[2]

He founded the Lewis Trust Group with his elder brother David and younger brother Geoffrey, but the latter two left in 1977.[2]

Lewis is estimated to be worth £1,030m (€1,484m).[5] In 2015, he was at position 83 on the Sunday times Rich List.[6]

River Island is now run by his nephew, Ben Lewis.[7]

His "right-hand man in the 1970s" was Leonard, his elder son from his first marriage.[2] In 1968, he married Jennifer Oldham, née Johnston, who modeled and acted under the name Jenny Meredith.[8] She died in 1975.

In 1981, he married Vanessa Bracey who had been a buyer for Chelsea Girl since 1970, and whom he had been in a relationship with since 1972. They have two sons, Sam and Jacob.[2]