The Boots Company was founded by John Boot. However, it was his son Jesse Boot (1850 - June 13 1931) who transformed the company into a national retailer, which branded itself as "Chemists to the Nation", before he sold out his controlling interest to American investors in 1920.

Jesse Boot was a great benefactor to the city of Nottingham. He donated land for the new University College at Highfields, now the University of Nottingham, which opened in 1928 and was presented with the Freedom of the City of Nottingham in 1920.

Jesse Boot was knighted in 1909, received a baronetcy in 1916, and in the New Year's Honours of 1929, was elevated to the peerage as the first Baron Trent of Nottingham. These latter honours probably owed as much to his solid support of the Liberal Party as to his philanthropy to the city of his birth.

He died in Jersey in 1931. The Sir Jesse Boot Chair in Chemistry at the University of Nottingham was named in his honor.

External links

• Biography - on Boots corporate website
• Boots family philanthropy - on Boots corporate website
• Chemists to the Nation - article in Pharmaceutical Journal