Wetherspoons boss' mystery life from rarely-seen wife to rule that made £448m

29 December 2023 , 22:40

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Tim Martin has been made a Knight Bachelor (Image: PA)

Tim Martin is the controversial boss behind the iconic pub chain Wetherspoons and has been knighted for services to hospitality and culture.

Decades after he opened his first budget boozer, he has been named in the New Years Honours List 2024. Wetherspoons has become a British institution, renowned for its cheap drinks and hard-to-beat full-English breakfasts, but what do we know about the business tycoon?

At the start of the year, Tim, 68, was named among the UK's biggest taxpayers as it emerged he paid £123 million in tax last year - but few people realise his £448million net worth started with running just one pub. He often redevelops old buildings that otherwise might have been left to ruin, such as banks and post offices, and injects them with a new lease of life in the form of punters.

The popular chain employs thousands of people, and in 2020 made a £76.6 million profit. As the brainchild of Tim, he will certainly be feeling proud of what he has accomplished over the years, as he was initially on course for an entirely different career and was told by one of his teachers that he would never make it - which inspired the name of his chain.

Boris Johnson and Tim Martin were both big supporters of Britain leaving the EU (Getty Images)

The outspoken Wetherspoons boss was born in Norwich in 1955, with a dad who worked for Guinness. He lived in the UK, New Zealand and Northern Ireland, and went to 11 schools as the family moved around. Martin then went on to the University of Nottingham and became a barrister in 1979. But the 6ft 6ins pub boss never worked as a lawyer. Instead he bought a bookies-turned-pub in London's Muswell Hill in the same year.

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For the first month it was called Martin's Free House, but was renamed Wetherspoons in 1980. Wetherspoon was the name of one of Martin's teachers, who told him he would never be a success. Forty years later and it's clear Martin has proved the teacher wrong. The company began opening more pubs in north London, and went from there, opening more and more branches around the country. The company floated on the Stock Exchange in 1992 and became JD Wetherspoon plc.

The 'JD' part of the company name 'JD Wetherspoons' was taken from a character in the US TV series The Dukes of Hazzard. The pub chain then went from strength to strength, opening more venues across the country. In July 1998, Wetherspoons opened 20 pubs in one month - including seven on the same day. In the year 2000, the 400th branch of Wetherspoons opened, with 500 open by 2001 and 700 by 2008.

Martin (R) pictured with fellow Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2018 (Getty Images)

In 2006, the pub chain launched something almost unheard of - free WiFi in every branch, which carries on to this day. Every branch of Wetherspoons has a different carpet, which is tailored to the location and name of the pub. Each one is partly handmade, and can cost up to £30,000 per pub.

Part of Martin's approach to running pubs comes from an unlikely source - a 1946 essay written by socialist and author George Orwell. The essay, called 'The Moon Under Water', lays out what Orwell thinks the ideal pub should be. The 1984 author says pubs should serve food, not be overpriced - and not play music. Orwell called his imaginary perfect pub 'The Moon Under Water'.

Today, not only do Wetherspoons pubs not play music but many are called The Moon Under Water. The turn of the millennium saw the businessman change his rule to allow punters to watch the news or sports on screens while sipping their drinks. In more recent years, Tim has also been one of the country's most vocal supporters of Brexit.

He was one of the few business leaders to speak in support of Brexit - putting him at odds with the majority of other companies. Using his Wetherspoons magazine to put forward his case for Brexit, the pub group also spent £94,856 on Brexit beer mats and other publications.

The boss also vowed to remove EU drinks from menus - although favourite tipples including Guinness from Ireland has stayed. During the pandemic, he was vocal about the impact of shutting down hospitality and before pubs were forced to close, he said: "My instinct is that closure won't save lives but will cost thousands of jobs and create unsustainable costs for the UK."

Not much is known about Tim's personal life, but he has been married to Felicity Martin for 26 years and lives in Exeter, Devon, with her and their four children.

* A previous version of this article reported that during the pandemic, Tim Martin 'suggested his 40,000 staff should go get jobs in supermarkets amid uncertainty, and said he wouldn't pay staff that weren't working during the lockdown'. This is incorrect. In fact, Mr Martin had said that if staff were offered a job in a supermarket, he would understand if they wanted to take it. We have also been asked to clarify that Mr Martin did not tell staff they would not be paid, and that all Wetherspoon staff were paid during the lockdown. We are happy to clarify this and apologise for the error.

Saffron Otter