Alexander Maguire

Sir Alexander Herbert Maguire (18 May 1876 – 20 January 1947), was a British industrialist who made his fortune from match manufacturing, producing the Maguire & Patterson brand amongst others. He played a significant part in the prohibition of poisonous white phosphorus from match manufacturing.

Biography Maguire was born in 1876, the son of match manufacturer J. T. Maguire of Liverpool. Alexander was educated at Waterloo College in Liverpool.

Personal life In 1902, Maguire married Isabel Mary (née Todd). They had one son and two daughters. and in the early 1920s lived at Coton Hall near Whitchurch, Shropshire.

His niece Isobel Maguire married Brigadier George Taylor CBE, DSO & Bar.

Alcoholism and death In 1945, Maguire stayed in Upper Carlisle Road, Eastbourne. There he was treated by society doctor John Bodkin Adams, the suspected serial killer. According to Olwen Williams, Maguire's nurse, Adams plied the patient with whisky despite him being "an inebriate". Maguire soon moved back to London, where he died 18 months later from "chronic alcoholism".