Richard, there's lots on the web about Dewhursts and the Vestey family who ownwed the chain in 1995 when they sold it.  Lots of stuff about tax avoidance etc.  Try

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jmbhome/standpies.html

for a start-off.

Here is what one of Stanley's favourite sites, Wikipedia, has...

Sir William (later Baron) Vestey established the Vestey empire in 1897 from a family butchery business in Liverpool. They were a pioneer of refrigeration, opening a cold store in London in 1895.

The Vestey brothers were initially sent to South America in an attempt to make their fortune because the economy there was booming. They started by buying game birds and storing them in the cold stores of American companies before shipping them to Liverpool.

International expansion
These early activities soon developed into importing beef and beef products into the UK, which in turn led to them owning cattle |ranches in Brazil, Venezuela and Australia and their own meat processing factories in Argentina, Uruguay, New Zealand and Australia(in 1914 Vestey Brothers built a meat processing works at Bullocky Point, Darwin, Australia). In 1915 the brothers moved to Buenos Aires to avoid paying income tax in the UK.

Vestey Brothers also developed a business importing eggs from China, and during World War II they were a major importer of powdered egg.

It is said that by 1930 Vesteys had 30,000 employees world wide and a net value of 300,000 pounds.

Shipping
To ship the meat back to the UK the Vesteys created their own shipping company, the Blue Star Line, registered on July 28 1911 in London and Liverpool with a capital of 100,000 pounds. In fact, they purchased their first two ships (Pakeha renamed Broderick, and Rangatira renamed Brodmore) in 1909.

The line owned a number of refrigerated ships (Reefers), and business later expanded to countries as far apart as Egypt and China, carrying passengers in addition to various foodstuffs. Blue Star was finally sold to P&O Nedlloyd for 60,000,000 GBP in 1998, although most of the refrigerated ships were retained by Vestey's Albion Reefers subsidiary, which later merged with Hamburg Sud to form Star Reefers, finally sold off in July 2001.

UK developments
In the course of their expansion, Vestey bought a number of other companies, acquiring Oxo and London's Oxo Tower through the purchase of the Liebig Extract of Meat Company.

In the middle of the 20th century, Vestey companies dominated the UK wholesale and retail meat trade, selling refrigerated and canned meats, as well as leather and other by-products. Having saved cash reserves for the purpose, they entered into a price war with the US owned importers to largely drive them from the UK market. Vestey developed the country-wide Dewhurst chain of butchers shops, which was eventually disbanded in 1995 in the face of increasing competition from the supermarket chains. Dewhurst were the first to introduce the innovation of glass windows on butcher's shops - previously meat had been exposed to the elements and pollution.


Involvement in Australia
The Vestey Group had aqquired a large amount of land in Australia, and using the Australian Aborigional people as cheap labour. This sparked The Gurindji Strike where the Group was forced by Gough Whitlam's government to return part of the land they owned to its indigenous owners.


Current situation
After a period of major restructuring in the late 1990s, Vestey Group today consists of Angliss Internationaland significant cattle ranching and sugar cane farming interests in Brazil and Venezuela.

Lord (Sam) Vestey, the great grandson of 1st Lord Vestey, is the current head of the family and Chairman of the Group. He owns a 6,000 acre (24 km²) estate at Stowell Park, Gloucestershire, valued at £15,000,000.

The Vesteys endowed the Vestey Professorship of Food Safety and Veterinary Public Health at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London.

In these same days, Vestays land properties are been confiscated by the government of Venezuela with the help of the local authorities.

Typhoid Outbreak, 1960s

Argentinean corned beef suspected

Argenta was an Argentinean frozen meat shop

Argenta butchers shop in the 1960s became J H Dewhirst's

That’s why Agenta Butcher’s changed its name To J H Dewhursts LTD

Many thanks, Ringo, for the information on the Vestey brothers.  However I have not found it easy to find out information about the start of JH Dewhurst, and presumably the Vestey Brothers bought out the chain then developed it as a market for their overseas meat.  Anyway I'll keep looking.

Herb, I do have a brother called John, who is married to Judith (Nutter), so not the same one.  Do you know which line of Broughton's your cousin's husband comes from?

In Turning Point issue 27 we are told Dewhursts is closing 600 shops and this is blamed on competition from Supermarkets. On the one hand this is good news. It is good to know that Dewhursts is on the way out. But on the other hand you must ask yourself - are we getting something worse in its place?

Vegan Retribution Squad

• Heirs and disgraces
Guardian, Wednesday August 11 1999
With Dewhurst the butchers they became Britain's richest business dynasty - and the country's most astute tax avoiders. Now they are worth a mere £650m and while one member of the family enjoys a day at the polo with Prince William, another is being linked to the protest against capitalism in the City of London. Stuart Millar and Alex Brummer trace the bizarre fortunes of the house of  UK's largest butchering chain, JH Dewhurst, with more than 300 branches...canning companies, commercial property and butchers chains. It became the
With Dewhurst the butchers they became Britain's richest business dynasty - and the country's

• Butchers fail hygiene test, says survey
Guardian, Friday April 12 2002
Felicity Lawrence Consumer affairs correspondent
Butchers are failing the most basic food hygiene tests, according to an investigation by Health Which? yesterday. Two environmental health officers visited 19 shops and supermarkets selling meat to check on hygiene standards. They posed as shoppers and found practices likely to cause food poisoning in several. Butchers and delicatessens came out worst in the study, although 
19 outlets in London - four butchers, five delicatessens, nine supermarkets, and one market stall. A branch of Dewhurst Butchers in Stratford, east London, (...)

• The young elite 1-10 
Observer, Sunday March 12 2000
Edited by Tom O'Sullivan
Their combined ?4.6bn fortune could buy enough Eurofighters to retake the House of Lords by force. But as most of them seem to have little interest in fighting for their family's place in the political system they are more likely to take the option of spending the money in other ways. There are those like Nathaniel Rothschild who is investing in new media and building a  the collapse of the Vestey empire and the liquidation of the Dewhurst butchers' chain in 1995. But don't shed too many tears - 

• Diary 
Guardian, Thursday July 1 1999 
Simon Bowers
A contender for our Press Release of the Month award arrives from the UK's largest independent butchers chain. "Dewhust", it reads, "has launched its latest promotion... 'Have a Butchers at the Eclipse'." But, insists marketing director Graham Heasman, there is more to this leap aboard the bandwagon than a weak pun on rhyming slang parlance. "Joking aside," he writes, "this  from the UK's largest independent butchers chain. "Dewhust", it reads, "has...doesn't say, so we call Dewhurst. "It's a regular 4oz

• Police bail Vestey heir over City riots
Guardian, Tuesday August 10 1999
Sue Quinn
City of London detectives have questioned a member of a wealthy aristocratic family in connection with the Carnival Against Global Capitalism riots which caused extensive damage to the financial district and led to dozens of arrests. Mark Brown, 35, grandson of Sir Derek Vestey, whose family made its fortune from the wholesale meat supply industry and the Dewhurst butcher
made its fortune from the wholesale meat supply industry and the Dewhurst butcher chain, has been bailed to return to Bishopsgate police station,

All very interesting. my old school mate Harry Widdup started work as the butcher's boy for the Argentina Butchers Shop next door to Savages the green grocers around about 1941, like me he got about 7/6d per week for pedalling his butchers bike round Barlick  - I did a similar job for G E Carr the grocer  - 49 hours per week  - 5 bob to my Mum and 2/6d for my pocket money. We must have been barmy????

Aye Hatepe