Victor Wild
Swiss émigré who launched Yorkshire Tea from Harrogate
VICTOR WILD, who has died aged 96, was the Swiss-born entrepreneur behind two enduringly successful northern English brands, Bettys Tea Rooms and Yorkshire Tea.
Wild combined his native land’s characteristics of finesse, attention to detail and strict financial prudence with an unconventional, freethinking turn of mind. Having inherited Bettys from an uncle, he perfected the timeless ambience and luscious patisserie offering that draw tourists from all over the world to its outlets in Harrogate, York and elsewhere, while decorating its walls with his own bold oil paintings and friezes.
The acquisition in 1962 of tea and coffee supplier CE Taylor & Co, a local firm whose own small chain of tea shops included the best corner site in Harrogate, was a brilliant consolidation – and led in 1977 to the launch of Yorkshire Tea, which took the reassuring qualities of both the company and the county to households nationwide.
Carl Viktor Wild was born at St Gallen, Switzerland, on May 30 1923, the youngest of three children of Ida and Carl Wild. His uncle Frederick Belmont had moved to England in 1907 and opened the first Bettys in Harrogate in 1919, expanding to Leeds, Bradford and York. He was childless, however, and sent word in 1936 asking his sister Ida if he could bring up one of her three teenagers as his own.
Thirteen-year old Carl Viktor (having enjoyed the parcels of Bettys sweets that occasionally arrived by post) volunteered, arrived with no word of English, and was dispatched to be educated at Sedbergh, working in the Bettys bakery and designing adverts for the tea rooms in his holidays.
Victor (having anglicised his name) spent a year in Claridges’ kitchens in London during the Blitz before returning to the York branch of Bettys. As a Swiss national he was not called up, instead working with his uncle to keep the business running despite rationing.
Their offerings included “fish cakes made with a frozen fish-mix (mostly skin) and mashed potato (no butter), corned beef hash and spam fritters … Apple Charlotte made with stale bread, or cream trifle without cream” as well as “honey salvaged from a warehouse fire, hence the burnt flavour”. “Dark brown exhausted chip fat” was turned into soap for washing-up.
After the war Victor trained in Swiss hotels before returning to Yorkshire and taking British citizenship. In 1952 Frederick died suddenly in his office above the Harrogate tea room – but Victor decided it should stay open, sitting with his deceased uncle until closing time when the body could be quietly carried downstairs.
As managing director thereafter, Victor stabilised the business over the following decade and began to apply his inventive mind to new opportunities, including an espresso bar, a continental delicatessen and an Italian restaurant format as well as the Taylors acquisition.
He turned down several offers to buy the business, which grew to employ 1,500 people, declaring the joy of leading it to be the delight its service and products gave customers and the knowledge that his staff – many very long-serving – felt valued and able to grow in their jobs: “My objective was to have a business one enjoyed working in.” He retired in 1996, to be succeeded by his son Jonathan and daughter-inlaw Lesley.
Victor Wild passed through a psychedelic phase in the 1960s which involved creating abstract light shows with coloured acetates. At his home in Harrogate he developed an idiosyncratic garden in which he dug his own swimming pool; he continued painting and sculpting, experimentally and vigorously, in old age. Intellectually wide-ranging, he relished lively debate.
Victor Wild married, in 1950, Kay Metcalfe, who died in January this year; he is survived by their two sons and a daughter.
Victor Wild, born May 30 1923, died April 11 2020