Bernard Sunley

Bernard Sunley (4 November 1910 – 20 November 1964) was a British property developer, and the founder of Bernard Sunley & Sons.

Bernard Sunley
Born4 November 1910
Catford, London, England
Died20 November 1964(1964-11-20) (aged 54)
Hampstead, London, England
NationalityBritish
Occupationproperty developer
Known forfounder, Bernard Sunley & Sons
Children3
RelativesRichard Tice (grandson)

Born at Catford in south-east London, he was educated at St Ann's School in Hanwell.[1] After leaving school aged 14 he hired a horse and cart to move earth, and then moved into the landscape gardening business.[2] One of his first major contracts was re-laying the pitch at Highbury for Arsenal FC.[3]

From earth-moving Sunley moved into the open-cast mining business. In 1940, he founded Bernard Sunley & Sons.[4] During the Second World War he built over 100 airfields, and in 1942 he purchased the business of Blackwood Hodge, then a supplier of agricultural machinery and later a successful plant hire and sale business.[5] He subsequently "ranked alongside the most successful property developers of the 1950s property boom".[4]

Sunley campaigned as Conservative party candidate for Ealing West in 1945, but was unsuccessful.

Sunley established the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation in 1960 with a pledge of £300,000-worth of shares. As of 2011, it had made grants of more than £92 million.[3]

He died in 1964. His son, John Sunley (died 2011) was a property developer and philanthropist.[3] His grandson is Richard Tice, a businessman and Brexit Party politician.

Bernard Sunley Hall, named after him, was an eponymous hall of residence for Imperial College London students on Evelyn Gardens Square.[6]

See also

References
  1. ‘SUNLEY, Bernard’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016
  2. "Bernard Sunley, builder, is dead". Retrieved 15 October 2017.
  3. John Sunley , The Daily Telegraph, 22 March 2011
  4. "Sunley, Bernard (1910–1964)". ODNB. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
  5. "Blackwood Hodge Memories". Retrieved 15 October 2017.
  6. "Evelyn Gardens". Imperial College London. Archived from the original on 19 April 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2016.


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