14 Facts About Paul Hamlyn

Paul Hamlyn was born Paul Bertrand Wolfgang Hamburger in Berlin, Germany, in 1926.

Paul Hamlyn's parents were Richard Hamburger, a paediatrician at the Charite Hospital in Berlin, and his wife, Lili, a Quaker of Polish descent.

Paul Hamlyn's father died in 1940 when Paul was 14.

Paul Hamlyn began his publishing career in 1949, selling books from a wheelbarrow in Camden, north-west London.

Paul Hamlyn transformed Paul Hamlyn Group and Octopus Publishing Group, now owned by Hachette Livre, into major UK publishing houses.

Paul Hamlyn's success was developed on the idea of publishing eye-catching, glossy books in colour that appealed to a non-literary retail market.

Paul Hamlyn used colour at a time when it was unusual and expensive for book publishers to do so, accessing printers and publishers in Czechoslovakia, such as Artia, for the purpose.

Paul Hamlyn published a number of book series including the Hamlyn All-Colour Paperbacks, The Portraits of Greatness and The Colour Library of Art.

In 1993 Paul Hamlyn became the University of West London's first Chancellor, and was awarded a Royal Society of Arts medal.

Paul Hamlyn was appointed a CBE in the 1993 Birthday Honours and made a British Life Peer on 23 February 1998, taking the title Baron Hamlyn, of Edgeworth in the County of Gloucestershire.

Paul Hamlyn established the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 1987 as a focus for his charitable interests, and it is one of the UK's largest independent grant-giving organisations.

Paul Hamlyn married first Eileen Watson, with whom he had two children, Michael and Jane, and secondly Helen Guest, who survives him.

Helen Paul Hamlyn is a designer and philanthropist, who heads the Helen Paul Hamlyn Trust.

Paul Hamlyn's brother Michael Hamburger was a poet and translator.