Jennifer Mary Victoria d'Abo (née Hammond-Maude, 14 August 1945 – 30 April 2003) was a British entrepreneur, best known for turning around the retail chain

Ryman Ryman is a stationery retail company with 205 outlets nationwide in the United Kingdom. The website and stores provide a wide range of stationery and office supplies for homes and businesses, with its headquarters in Crewe, Cheshire. His ...

in the 1980s, and making

stationery Stationery refers to writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery usually specifies materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter paper) or by equipment such as computer p ...

"trendy". According to Nicholas Faith writing in ''The Independent'', she was "that rarest of phenomena, a serial female entrepreneur".

Early life

She was born Jennifer Mary Victoria Hammond-Maude on 14 August 1945, the daughter of a diplomat, Major Michael William Vernon Hammond-Maude, and his first wife, Rosamond Patrick. He was the last undisputed Lord of the Manor of Baildon.

Career

After she married her third husband, she started a business career, with a

grocery shop A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop or grocer's shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday US usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym ...

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status in the United King ...

, soon followed by a furniture shop, which sold three years later for a profit of £1 million, and bought a

toiletries Personal care products are consumer products which are applied on various external parts of the body such as skin, hair, nails, lips, external genital and anal areas, as well as teeth and mucous membrane of the oral cavity, in order to make th ...

company. In 1981, she bought the

stationery shop chain from Ralph Halpern of

Burton Group Arcadia Group Ltd (formerly Arcadia Group plc and, until 1998, Burton Group plc) was a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It was best known for being the previous parent company of British Home Stores (B ...

, before selling it in 1987 to

Pentos Pentos plc was a British holding company that operated between 1972 and 1995 and was best known for its ownership of the Dillons, Wilding Office Equipment, Ryman and Athena retail brands. Pentos was established from a shell company by Terry M ...

for £20 million, growing the business value by nearly ten times in six years. The success of her later ventures was more mixed, and she even had a

recipe book A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (food), course (appetize ...

published, complete with several celebrities contributing, ''Jennifer d'Abo At Home''.

Personal life

In 1963, she married David Morgan-Jones, a Life Guards officer, they had a daughter, Sophie, and later divorced. In 1970, she married

Peter Cadbury Peter Egbert Cadbury (6 February 1918 – 17 April 2006) was a British entrepreneur. Early life and education Cadbury was born at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, the son of Sir Egbert Cadbury and his wife, Mary Forbes, the daughter of Rev. Forbes P ...

, they had a son, Joel Cadbury, but divorced in 1976. Peter Cadbury said that the reason was because, "she's a better entrepreneur than me". Her third marriage, to the stockbroker Robin d'Abo, survived until 1987. She stayed on good terms with all three of her former husbands, and once arranged a dinner with all three, which was a success; and she went on holiday with one ex- and her successor. She was known for her eccentricities, her connections to socialites and her "larger-than-life style", "typified by trademark heart-shaped spectacles". She had homes in Chelsea, the grounds of Blenheim Palace and at The Anchorage in Mallorca. She died of cancer on April 30, 2003, aged 57.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abo, Jennifer d' 1945 births 2003 deaths British grocers Businesspeople from London

Jennifer Jennifer or Jenifer may refer to: People *Jennifer (given name) * Jenifer (singer), French pop singer *Jennifer Warnes, American singer who formerly used the stage name Jennifer * Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer * Daniel Jenifer Film and televisi ...

20th-century British businesswomen 21st-century British businesswomen 20th-century English businesspeople 20th-century English businesswomen