William Hill

WILLIAM HILL d1971. British founder of William Hill, the bookmaking firm. Born in Birmingham, he left school at the age of twelve to work on his uncle's farm. While working in a factory in Birmingham he started collecting illegal bets from local people on his motorcycle. He moved to London in 1929 where he started taking bets on greyhounds before opening an illicit gambling den in Jermyn Street in 1934. He exploited a loophole which allowed credit or postal betting but not cash. In 1938 he was the joint owner of Lone Keel who went on to win the 1938 English Greyhound Derby. In 1944 he produced the first fixed-odds football coupon. In 1954 he reversed his business into Holder's Investment Trust (a shell company) thereby securing a listing on the London Stock Exchange. Although he had called legal betting offices "a cancer on society", he opened his first in 1966, after his competitors had stolen a march on him. He was also interested in breeding horses and in 1943 bought a stud at Whitsbury in Hampshire. He retired in 1970 and died in Newmarket the following year aged 68