Julius Charles Hendicott Drewe was an English businessman, retailer and entrepreneur who founded Home and Colonial Stores, and who ordered the building of Castle Drogo in Devon.
Origins
Julius Charles Drew was born at the vicarage in Pulloxhill near Ampthill in Bedfordshire, the son of Rev. George Smith Drew, Rector of Avington, Winchester, by his wife Mary Peek, the eldest child of William Peek of Loddiswell, Devon and first cousin of Sir Henry William Peek, 1st Baronet of Rousdon, Devon. Julius was the third youngest of eight children. His siblings Mary, Edith, Ada, Reginald, William, Anna and Evelyn all moved, either to different parts of the United Kingdom or to the Colonies, including British North America. He was the nephew of Richard Peek, a Sheriff of the City of London.
Early origins
Julius' father, Rev. George Smith Drew, was born 22 October 1818 in Kensington, then a village on the outskirts of London, to an affluent family. He was a clergyman and serial publisher. Julius' mother was Mary Peek, born 13 March 1821 in Islington. Julius' grandfather, George H. Drew, was born in Belgravia, in Westminster in 1790 but at the age of four moved with his parents to their country house in the South Hams, Devonshire. George moved back to London aged twenty-one and became a tea merchant during the birth of the Industrial Revolution. The Drew family had close ties with the French aristocracy in the eighteenth century by the lineage of King Louis XIII of France through his great-granddaughter. As a result of this, Thomas Drew was born 1745 in Gironde, France. Thomas later migrated back to England with his father at a young age, at some time before the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, and became an architect based in Sloane Street, Westminster.
Career
As a child he attended the renowned and prestigious Bedford School between 1862 and 1874, a traditional private boarding school founded by King Edward VI. After leaving school at eighteen years of age, Julius started his working life as a tea buyer in China and opened his first tea shop four years later in Liverpool in 1878, aged only twenty-one. In 1883 he moved to London to expand his enterprises. The business developed rapidly under the name of Home and Colonial Stores. After only six years, in 1889, he and his partner, John Musker, were able to retire from active participation in the firm as extremely rich men. Drew was only thirty-two years old. In 1919 they sold their shares in the business for £3.5 million, then a huge sum.
Genealogist
With his brother William he had always taken a keen interest in the history of the Drew family. A genealogist convinced him that his family was descended from the 16th century gentry family of Drewe of Sharpham, in the parish of Ashprington, near Totnes, Devon, which from the early 17th century to 1903 resided at The Grange in the parish of Broadhembury near Honiton in Devon. Furthermore, the genealogist also produced an "authenticated descent" claiming to prove a link between the Drewe family of The Grange and the 12th century Anglo-Norman Dru, who in the reign of King Henry II was lord of the manor of Teignton, later Drew's Teignton. However, by 1242 the manor of Teignton had passed from the Dru/Drogo family and was held by the Daubernon family. The manufactured pedigree suggested furthermore that Julius was also descended from the royal House of York through Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York's marriage to Isabella of Castile, Duchess of York. Having discovering all this, in 1901 he bought the estate of Broadhembury House in the parish of Broadhembury and installed in it his elder brother William Drewe, a wealthy barrister of the Inner Temple, who died there on 25 March 1938.
Castle Drogo
Julius's first cousin was Richard Peek, the rector of Drewsteignton. Julius 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. He found an ideal site, and in 1910 he bought about south and west of the village; by the time of his death he had bought up an estate of 1,500 acres. He then went to Edwin Lutyens, a prominent architect of the time, and asked him to build his castle. According to his son Basil, he did so on the advice of William Hudson, proprietor of Country Life, who was both a patron and a champion of Lutyens. Drewe was now 54 years old, but he still had time, energy and money to create his new family seat. On 4 April 1911, Drewe's 55th birthday, the first foundation stone was laid. The castle took many years to complete, with the First World War and the economic downturn causing many delays. Castle Drogo was finally completed in 1930, a year before Julius died. Castle Drogo was the last castle to be built in England, and probably the last private house in the country to be built entirely of granite. It is now a Grade I listed building.
Marriage and progeny
On 26 September 1890 Julius married Frances Richardson, younger daughter of Thomas Richardson of Buxton, Derbyshire, by whom he had five children, three sons and two daughters, as follows:
Adrian Drewe, eldest son and heir apparent, the seventh 'Drewe' to be educated at Eton College and Cambridge University. He died during World War Ion the front line in 1917 at Ypres, Belgium, alongside about 80 to 100 men from his platoon. His death was a terrible loss to his father who never fully recovered from the shock.
Basil Drewe, MC, 2nd son, a barrister of the Middle Temple, who became his father's heir and in 1931 succeeded him at Castle Drogo. He was awarded an OBE in 1943 for his work with RAF on radar.
Julius Drewe died on 10 November 1931 and was buried at Drewsteignton. His widow Frances and his eldest surviving son Basil Drewe continued to live in the castle. Frances Drewe died in 1954 and Basil was then joined at Drogo by his son Anthony Drewe and his wife. In 1974, Anthony Drewe and his son, Dr Christopher Drewe, gave Castle Drogo, of the surrounding estate, Whiddon Farm, several cottages in Drewsteignton and a financial dowry to the National Trust. It was the first property built in the 20th-century acquired by the charity.
