A MILLIONAIRE POTATO FARMER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 16 August 1924, Page 8

A MILLIONAIRE POTATO FARMER

V ROMANCE OF THE LAND

Aid. William Dennis, of Kirton House, near Boston, known as “The potato king,” died alter a short illness in liis 83rd ves.r.

lie enjoyed remarkably jjood health nj) to a few days before his death. Trouble developed upon a chili. A tort, night ago he was taken to London in'a motor ambulance, but nothing could be done, for him, and he returned to Kirton by special train. * Burn at Hcrsington in 1841, Mr Dennis began life as an agricultural labourer. At 22 he was foreman at Kirton for tho local representative of a Covent- Garden potato firm. A little later ho succeeded his employer. Nearly 40 years ago ho set up in Covent Garden himself. When land was cheap in tho seventies Mr Dennis, with a partner, bought seven acres of land, and paid for it by Instalments. They planted potatoes, but they all went bad in tho ground. The partner was discouraged and dropped out., but Dennis went on and persevered with such effect that thirty years later he was the greatest potato grower in the world, owning 3000 acres. .Five sons became his partners, in the concern, which spread out of Lincolnshire into Huntingdon, and from Covent Garden to Jersey, Southampton, and Leicester, and in 1914 the two firms of William Dennis and Sons, Ltd., and the Dennis Estates, Ltd., owned 6000 acres, and purchased a further 2240 acres at Litt-iohampton. in 1920 the concerns • were.purchased by a financial syndicate with public! v subscribed capital ol £2.000,000.