Tim Waterstone

Sir Timothy John Stuart Waterstone (born 30 May 1939) is a British bookseller, businessman and author. He is the founder of Waterstones, the United Kingdom-based bookseller retail chain, the largest in Europe.

Early life Timothy John Stuart Waterstone was born on 30 May 1939 in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the son of Malcolm Stuart Waterstone, MBE (died 1977), and Sylvia Catherine (died 1967), daughter of George Curnock Sawday of Beechfield, The Common, Weybridge, Surrey, a dentist and "well-known amateur rosarian". Malcolm Waterstone had previously worked in Calcutta in his fifty-year career with P. R. Buchanan & Co., a Glasgow tea company operating in India, of which he became a partner. He was appointed MBE in 1942, whilst serving as a Captain (temporary Major) in the Royal Army Service Corps. Waterstone grew up in "a rather cramped, 1930s detached house ... Ugly, unpretentious, nice big garden, fields at the end of it" in Crowborough, East Sussex, England. He became the chairman of Read Petite, an e-book company, in 2013.

Waterstone supports the Labour Party (he chose Clement Attlee as his 'hero' in the initial 2001 BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives). He was opposed to the Iraq War and took part in demonstrations against it.

Personal life Waterstone is twice divorced.

Waterstone is a member of the Garrick Club.