Hester Parnall

Hester Parnall (, 1868–1939) was an English businesswoman and brewer who was director and chair of St Austell Brewery.

Biography Hester Parnall was born in St Austell, Cornwall, England, in 1868. She married Thomas Rogers Parnall in 1904, a widower 28 years her senior. She was widowed in 1915.

St Austell Brewery was founded in 1851 by Parnall's father, Walter Hicks, at St Austell. In 1911, Hester's brother Walter Junior died after a motorcycle accident at Helston, Cornwall, and Walter returned to run the brewery aged 82. She remained in this position until her 1939. She was succeeded by her nephew Egbert Barnes (1898–1979).

Under her leadership, St Austell Brewery expanded, horse-drawn wagons were replaced with steam-powered ones and by the 1920s production had doubled in comparison to before the war. including The Yacht Inn in Penzance, The Crown Inn in St Ewe and The White Hart Hotel in St Austell. In 1934, she acquired Christopher Ellis and Son’s steam brewery in Hayle, Cornwall, along with the estate of 30 pubs.

Parnall was a "matriarchal figure" and was feared by her employees. The first person to see her chauffeur-driven Daimler car pulling into the brewery would bang on the water pipes to warn that she was arriving. In 1963, she was described by Clifford Hockin, then the brewery’s company secretary as "ruling the Company with the grace of a duchess combined with the aplomb of a successful business man". Parnall died in 1939 in Fowey, Cornwall.