Hilary Weston, businesswoman who helped build Penneys and Brown Thomas dies aged 83

Kenneth Fox

Hilary Weston, the Dublin-born businesswoman who helped build Penneys and Brown Thomas as part of her husband Galen Weston’s family retail empire, has died aged 83.

As The Irish Times reports, Ms Weston died in England, where she lived in recent years.

She was prominent in the early days of Penneys after the family business bought the ailing Todd Byrne’s department store and established the budget fashion chain.

She is said to have personally overseen the production of clothing for the in-house brand the company introduced early on, Primark, which would ultimately give its name to the wider chain outside Ireland.

She was later prominent in running Brown Thomas for a considerable time after her husband purchased the long-established retailer.

In the years that followed she served as vice-chair of Holt Renfrew, the group’s luxury retail chain in Canada.

She held a variety of other positions in the wider family’s interests, which included the conglomerate Associated British Foods (ABF), of which Penneys was a subsidiary; Fortnum & Mason; and Loblaws, the largest food retailer in Canada. She also oversaw a major property development in Florida.

Born Hilary Frayne in Dún Laoghaire in 1942, she was the eldest of five children and attended Loreto Abbey, Dalkey.

She started to work as a model in the 1950s and was successful at it, working extensively in Ireland and internationally. She met her future husband after he saw her on a billboard advertisement and had auctioneer Corrie Buckley arrange an introduction. The couple married in 1966.

Having initially settled at the Roundwood Park estate in Wicklow, the family moved to Toronto in 1971 and Ms Weston later became a Canadian citizen.