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- Sir Brian Lawrence Goswell
1935-11-26
Education St David's Sch High Wycombe, Univ of Durham
Books & Publications
Recreations shooting, horse racing, cricket, fishing
Clubs Carlton, City Livery, United & Cecil, MCC, The Rifles London Officers, Leander
Style Sir Brian Goswell, FRICS, FRSA
Career served Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry 1954-57; Healey & Baker (surveyors and valuers): joined 1957, ptnr 1969, managing ptnr 1977, dep sr ptnr 1988, dep chm 1997-2001, conslt 2000-02; chm: Brent Walker Group plc 1993-97, Sunley Secure plc 1993-99, William Hill Organization Ltd 1994-97, International Security Management Group Ltd 1998-2002, ISS Group Ltd 2004-07; memb: Advsy Bd Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners 1989-95, Advsy Panel AIM Gp plc 2005-07; past pres The Land Inst; past pres: ISVA, Br Cncl for Offices, American C of C London; tstee Cons and Unionist Agents' Superannuation Fund 1997-2001; Liveryman Worshipful Co of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers; FRICS, FRSA
Sir Brian Goswell, who has died aged 78, was a Conservative Party fundraiser, a grandee of the City property scene, and the last chairman of the Brent Walker leisure group.
Goswell’s base of operations was Healey & Baker, the chartered surveyors and commercial property consultants of which he was a partner for more than 30 years and deputy chairman from 1997 to 2000. He specialised in advising landlords and developers of office space in the City, and was particularly associated with the 32-acre Broadgate estate close to Liverpool Street station - the largest development in late-1980s London before the advent of Canary Wharf. He also advised several major banks on real estate matters.
A tireless networker, fixer and luncher, Goswell was generous with his own resources and adept at persuading wealthy connections to support the Conservative cause. To that end he reinvigorated the United & Cecil Club, which brought politicians and donors together at dinners in the House of Commons and elsewhere. He was also a leading light of the Carlton Club, where he was chairman of the political committee and later a trustee; the two clubs between them regularly channelled six-figure annual donations to the party.
Having been a devotee of Margaret Thatcher, he was knighted for political services by John Major in 1991 and was a funder of Michael Portillo’s abortive leadership bid in 1995.
Brian Lawrence Goswell was born in the East End of London on November 26 1935. His father worked for the Castrol oil company, and the family moved to Beaconsfield during the war years. Brian was educated at St David’s School in High Wycombe and served in the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry from 1954 to 1957.
He then joined Barclays Bank, but was soon recruited into Healey & Baker - largely, he liked to say, because they needed a bowler for their cricket team. He also became an ardent Young Conservative, rising to be a regional chairman and national committee member, though he never pursued parliamentary ambitions.
He became a partner of Healey & Baker (now part of an American group, Cushman & Wakefield) in 1969, concentrating on retail property in north-east England. When asked to establish the firm’s first City office he was initially reluctant, but went on to build a highly successful business. He also took charge, from London, of business development in New York.
Goswell was often to be spotted, wreathed in cigar smoke, as he was chauffeured between the City, the West End and the Carlton Club in limousines with the registrations BLG1 and BLG2. In 1988 he succeeded the banker Michael von Clemm as chairman of Michel and Albert Roux’s restaurant empire, and in 1993 he took on the less congenial task of chairing Brent Walker (of which he was already a non-executive director) as well as its two major subsidiaries, the Pubmaster chain and William Hill betting shops.
Brent Walker had been created by the former boxer George Walker during the 1980s boom. It was built on a £1.4 billion mountain of debt, and after its collapse in the early-1990s recession, Goswell’s task was to oversee the sale of its remaining assets: Pubmaster in due course fetched £170 million and William Hill £700 million - an “incredible result”, according to one analyst, that secured for the banks far more by way of repayment than they first expected. Brent Walker itself was then wound up.
Goswell was president of the British Council for Offices and the Society of Valuers and Auctioneers, and the first non-American president of the American Chamber of Commerce in London. Among many charitable commitments, he raised funds for the Army Benevolent Fund; the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme; the Headway charity for victims of head injuries; and the World Wildlife Fund.
His final business involvement was as chairman until 2007 of Intelligence & Security Solutions, a private security business with a history of financial trouble - run by an ex-SAS officer, John Wick, who was later an intermediary in the sale of data on MPs’ expenses claims. “Wick is a military man,” was Sir Brian’s comment. “What he is not is much of a businessman.”
Goswell was passionately keen on shooting, for many years running a shoot on the Fleming family estate at Nettlebed; he also enjoyed fishing.
He married, in 1961, Deirdre Stones, after a first date at a Young Conservatives meeting. She survives him with their two sons, both of whom followed him into the property world having made their early careers in Healey & Baker. He then joined Barclays Bank, but was soon recruited into Healey & Baker - largely, he liked to say, because they needed a bowler for their cricket team. He also became an ardent Young Conservative, rising to be a regional chairman and national committee member, though he never pursued parliamentary ambitions.
He became a partner of Healey & Baker (now part of an American group, Cushman & Wakefield) in 1969, concentrating on retail property in north-east England. When asked to establish the firm’s first City office he was initially reluctant, but went on to build a highly successful business. He also took charge, from London, of business development in New York.
Goswell was often to be spotted, wreathed in cigar smoke, as he was chauffeured between the City, the West End and the Carlton Club in limousines with the registrations BLG1 and BLG2. In 1988 he succeeded the banker Michael von Clemm as chairman of Michel and Albert Roux’s restaurant empire, and in 1993 he took on the less congenial task of chairing Brent Walker (of which he was already a non-executive director) as well as its two major subsidiaries, the Pubmaster chain and William Hill betting shops.
Brent Walker had been created by the former boxer George Walker during the 1980s boom. It was built on a £1.4 billion mountain of debt, and after its collapse in the early-1990s recession, Goswell’s task was to oversee the sale of its remaining assets: Pubmaster in due course fetched £170 million and William Hill £700 million - an “incredible result”, according to one analyst, that secured for the banks far more by way of repayment than they first expected. Brent Walker itself was then wound up.
Goswell was president of the British Council for Offices and the Society of Valuers and Auctioneers, and the first non-American president of the American Chamber of Commerce in London. Among many charitable commitments, he raised funds for the Army Benevolent Fund; the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme; the Headway charity for victims of head injuries; and the World Wildlife Fund.
His final business involvement was as chairman until 2007 of Intelligence & Security Solutions, a private security business with a history of financial trouble - run by an ex-SAS officer, John Wick, who was later an intermediary in the sale of data on MPs’ expenses claims. “Wick is a military man,” was Sir Brian’s comment. “What he is not is much of a businessman.”
Goswell was passionately keen on shooting, for many years running a shoot on the Fleming family estate at Nettlebed; he also enjoyed fishing.
He married, in 1961, Deirdre Stones, after a first date at a Young Conservatives meeting. She survives him with their two sons, both of whom followed him into the property world having made their early careers in Healey & Baker.
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1935 - 2014 (78 years)
