Private family funeral for Brown Thomas businesswoman, Hilary Weston, to be held in UK

Sarah Slater

A private family funeral for Hilary Weston, the Dublin-born businesswoman and philanthropist who helped build Penneys and Brown Thomas as part of her late husband Galen’s family retail empire, who died aged 83, is to be held in the UK with a state funeral in Canada later in the year. 

Ms Weston (83) died in London on Saturday where she lived in recent years. It is understood her health deteriorated a week prior to her death.

The funeral will be for close family members, with a memorial for various charities and organisations to which Ms Weston was attached. 

In a statement, her family said she died peacefully, surrounded by her loved ones.

In keeping with her position as a former lieutenant governor of Ontario, Canada, a state funeral will be held in Toronto.

The timing of these two events have yet to be confirmed. 

Galen G Weston paid tribute to his mother on Sunday night.

“Our mother lived with unwavering devotion to her family and a belief in the power and importance of community and service," he said.

"Brilliant, brave, companionate, and beautiful, she brought a touch of magic to everything she did - in her decades of public service, philanthropy and her remarkable business career. Her greatest joy was the life she created for her family and friends - filled with warmth, love, and fun."

Alannah Weston Cochrane, her daughter, said: “Our mother’s elegance and high standards were matched by her warmth and sense of humour. She loved a challenge, and brought her innate creativity and style to everything she did.

"But it was her vision, coupled with her enormous capacity for hard work that made her a great female leader. Her insight, wisdom and strength as well as her belief in individuals made almost anything possible.”

Tánaiste Simon Harris said he was "deeply saddened" to learn of the passing of Ms Weston.

"Hillary was a very proud Irish-Canadian, who served both Ireland and Canada with distinction and generosity. In addition to her successful businesses and public service in Canada, through her leadership of the Ireland Funds Canada, she made a lasting contribution to Irish-Canadian relations," he said.

"I extend sincere condolences to her children Alannah and Galen, and the entire Weston family."

Ms Weston 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.

The Dublin native 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, 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.

Hilary Weston

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 while travelling and had auctioneer Corrie Buckley arrange an introduction.

By 1965, she and Galen were engaged and on July 23rd, 1966, they married in England.

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.

In August 1983, the IRA attempted to kidnap Mr Weston at Roundwood, but An Garda Síochána had apparently been tipped off.

The family was not there and two of the kidnappers were killed, while others were arrested during a gunfight with armed police. The family went on to sell the estate and are said to have become more private afterwards.

Mr Weston, who was born in England but brought up in Canada, moved to Ireland in 1962 to establish Power supermarkets. He later took over the Quinnsworth chain before eventually selling the retailer to Tesco in the 1990s.

Brown Thomas subsequently acquired the Switzer group of stores and then Arnotts, the Irish operation becoming part of the Selfridges group, which the family sold in 2021 for a price reported to have exceeded €4 billion.

Penneys, though, which was established by Arthur Ryan with Galen Weston for ABF in 1969, would ultimately represent the Irish business’s greater contribution to the wider group. The company now employs more than 80,000 staff across 17 countries and had sales of close to €11 billion in 2024.

The Sunday Times put the wider family’s fortune at some £17.75 billion in its most recent rich list.

Ms Weston was still involved in various aspects of the business until recent years and played a role in many related charitable foundations which had been established to support a range of causes and made donations running into hundreds of millions of euro over the years.

In 1979, she set up the Ireland Fund of Canada, a chapter of Tony O’Reilly’s Ireland Fund, to raise money for good causes here. Between 1997 and 2002 she served as lieutenant governor of Ontario, donating the salary to an initiative to help young people from poor backgrounds into employment.

She became Ontario’s 26th lieutenant Governor and only the second woman to have been appointed to the role in the province.

She also authored two successful books on homes and gardens.

The mother-of-two was predeceased by her husband, who died in April 2021, and is survived by their two children, Alannah and Galen jnr, both of whom are involved in the family business.

*This article was amended at 6pm on August 8th, 2024.