1. Julius Charles Drewe was an English businessman, retailer and entrepreneur who founded Home and Colonial Stores, and who ordered the building of Castle Drogo in Devon.
12 Facts About Julius Drewe
1. 2.
Julius Drewe was the nephew of Richard Peek, a Sheriff of the City of London.
3.
Julius Drewe' mother was Mary Peek, born 13 March 1821 in Islington.
4.
Julius Drewe's great uncle, Richard Peek, one of the three brothers who founded Peek and Winch, was an abolitionist and philanthropist who was on the organising committee of the anti-slavery conventions held in London in 1840 and 1843.
5.
Julius Drewe opened his first tea shop four years later in Liverpool in 1878, aged only twenty-one.
6.
The manufactured pedigree suggested furthermore that Julius Drewe was descended from the royal House of York through Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York's marriage to Isabella of Castile, Duchess of York.
7.
Julius Drewe stayed on several occasions with his cousin and it must have been here that he conceived the idea of building a castle on the home ground of his ancestor.
8.
Julius Drewe found an ideal site, and in 1910 he bought about 450 acres south and west of the village; by the time of his death he had bought up an estate of 1,500 acres.
9.
Julius Drewe then went to Edwin Lutyens, a prominent architect of the time, and asked him to build his castle.
10.
Julius Drewe was now 54 years old, but he still had time, energy and money to create his new family seat.
11.
Julius Drewe died on 10 November 1931 and was buried at Drewsteignton.
12.
Frances Julius Drewe died in 1954 and Basil was then joined at Drogo by his son Anthony Julius Drewe and his wife.