Bernard Sunley
Bernard Sunley was a British property developer, and the founder of Bernard Sunley & Sons.
Born at Catford in south-east London, he was educated at St Ann's School in Hanwell. After leaving school aged 14 he hired a horse and cart to move earth, and then moved into the landscape gardening business. One of his first major contracts was re-laying the pitch at Highbury for Arsenal FC.
From earth-moving Sunley moved into the open-cast mining business. In 1940, he founded Bernard Sunley & Sons. During the Second World War he built over 100 airfields, and in 1942 he purchased the business of Blackwood Hodge, then a supplier of agricultural machinery and later a successful plant hire and sale business. He subsequently "ranked alongside the most successful property developers of the 1950s property boom".
Sunley campaigned as Conservative party candidate for Ealing West in 1945, but was unsuccessful.
Sunley established the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation in 1960 with a pledge of £300,000-worth of shares. As of 2011, it had made grants of more than £92 million.
He died in 1964. His son, John Sunley was a property developer and philanthropist. His grandson is Richard Tice, a businessman and Brexit Party politician.
Bernard Sunley Hall, named after him, was an eponymous hall of residence for Imperial College London students on Evelyn Gardens Square.
