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Ernest Ridley Debenham
Ernest Ridley Debenham (1865–1952) took over the firm founded by his grandfather and expanded it. He sold it in 1927 when he retired, for £1.7 million, which is about £97 million in 2018. He retired to Bladen in Dorset to run a dairy farm. There he bought the village of Briantspuddle, near Affpuddle and Tolpuddle, and built 40 new houses for his workers, each with an inside toilet and a quarter acre of land. The numbering of the houses was based on the order in which their rent was collected. Debenham commissioned Eric Gill to design the village war memorial.
Date: 1910
Paper size: 108 x 87 mm
Design: 100 x 82 mm max
Credit: W.P.B. (William Phillips Barrett)
Designer: Robert Osmond
Proof: MH
Bookplate