Frank Pullen
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Francis Henry "Frank" Pullen (September 8, 1915 – January 17, 1992) was an English businessperson and racehorse owner.
He was born, the youngest of four children, as Francis Henry Pullen to Arthur and Alice Pullen at Catford, South London. His father was killed in a submarine accident during WW1 and Alice Pullen supported four children on her own during the depression.
Frank Pullen married at the age of 17 and enlisted in the British Army at the start of World War II. He was one of the survivors of D-Day, landing at ""gold"" beach, and later during WW2 helped liberate the Belgium town of Lessines. The grateful town gave him the freedom of the city and he later named two of his homes (one in Bromley ,south London and one in Looe, Cornwall, where he would holiday) "Lessines" in honor of this.
After he was demobilised from the 8th army in 1948, Pullen started in business as a builder in a wartorn South London and became a member of the National House Building Council . Pullen became one of South London's leading property developers, and incorporated his business in 1962 , using the slogan "We Build To Please" . He specialised at first building bungalows (Clarence Road,Croydon) and houses. Maisonettes followed, one of his first being "Karen Court", Blyth Road, Bromley, a block of three. He soon progressed to blocks of flats and then moved on to housing estates, building over fifty major developments. Examples of his later buildings can be found at Ingleside Close, Parklands, Montreux Court, Highgrove Court and Gatcombe Court in Beckenham, the last three being the innovative "One roof" design, by Joyce Lowman. At Florida Court in Bromley stand three blocks in a low density two acre plot and at Beulah Hill he built a ground breaking block of flats, climbing up Spurgeon Road and having a grand view over S.W.London. The architect again being the young Joyce Lowman.
Pullen also opened a series of general hardware shops , selling a wide range of products . These included "pink" parafin , wallpapers and paints , DIY and household goods ,cutlery and crockery , dustbins and ice-creams . Branches covered south London , the first of these being on Catford broadway . Pullen became a millionaire and he enjoyed his wealth , and by July 1965 had ordered his first new Rolls-Royce - Silver Cloud III Coupe from James Young, a luxury coachbuilder cited in Bromley . A car lover , Pullen owned a stable of many of the Grand Tourer automobiles of the period , including Audi`s , BMW`s , Jaguar`s and Jensen`s .
He was also able to indulge in his lifelong passion of horse racing, training and breeding. His friends included Peter Bromley, racing commentator, and Pullen went on to be a popular owner with a string of race horses most famously at Josh Gifford's yard in Findon, Sussex . It was as such that he was interviewed by the Radio Times magazine ("Six owners in search of a winner" by Russell Twisk) in 1972, having just bought a horse especially for that year's Grand National Horse race at Aintree.
Pullen was a frequent visitor to Kenya where he created a racing complex in Nairobi, and embarked on an ambitious project there to build a township including schools and hospitals. Pullen went on to form Bromley Industrial Consultants Ltd , centred in Pall Mall, London , with the purpose of helping 3rd world nations develop .
Frank Pullen formally retired in 1988 and he died peacefully, aged 77, at his racing yard at Orpington , Kent, and is buried at London Road Cemetery, Bromley. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who's nieces were inmates of The Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, where Pullens relatives James Henry Pullen and Arthur William Pullen were also notable residents, sent Frank's widow a letter of condolence upon hearing of his death.
