BRITAIN IRELAND SCOTLAND YOUNG PEOPLE WOMEN Hilary Weston and family RESULTS 2006 Ranking Worth Industry 1 £4,700m ( €6,912m) Retailing and food Every year is a good year when your family fortune stands at £4.7billion, but the problem is what to give the woman who already has everything? Canada’s governor-general came up with a solution and awarded Hilary Weston the country’s highest civilian honour, the Order of Canada, in recognition of her philanthropy. The Westons are Canada’s cross between the Kennedys (without the tragedy) and the royal family (with more style). Irish-born Hilary, 64, worked as a model to support her Dublin-based family as a teenager and had the good sense to fall in love with and marry Galen Weston, 65, a grocery store magnate, now Canada’s second wealthiest man and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He was in Ireland at the time to set up the Quinnsworth business, later sold to Tesco. In Canada the family’s George Weston food group, founded by Galen’s grandfather, has a 61% stake in the supermarket chain Loblaw’s, which is being restructured after its stock fell by a quarter in the past year. The group also owns the Brown Thomas department store chain in Ireland and Holt Renfrew business in Canada. The Westons initially divided their time between Ireland and Canada but, after a failed IRA kidnap bid, they abandoned their Co Wicklow estate and moved permanently to the land of maple syrup. Galen, the uncle of George Weston (see page 21), spent £598m in 2003 on acquiring Selfridges in the UK, where his daughter Alannah is creative director. Alannah, 34, who has claimed that her earliest memory was being lost in the china department of one of her father’s stores, describes retail as “in my blood”. She has developed the concept of “retail theatre” — part art, part event, part shopping — to promote the store. The Westons’ son, Galen Jr, 33, known as G2, is a director of the business in Canada. RESULTS 2005 Ranking 1 Worth 2005: £5,100m