W. B. Shearn

William Benjamin Shearn (1872 – 12 January 1938) was an English businessman, florist, and vegetarianism activist, who promoted a fruitarian way of living. He managed a fruitarian restaurant at Tottenham Court Road.

Biography

Early life Shearn was born in the first quarter of 1872 in St. Giles, Middlesex. He was christened on 11 February 1880 at Saint John the Evangelist, Charlotte Street, Camden.

Career Shearn's father Benjamin Shearn (1829–1913) was the owner of the first fruitarian restaurant in London, established in 1905. The restaurant was positioned above his fruit store at 231-234 Tottenham Court Road, that were both managed by Shearn. The ground floor was a florist and greengrocer and the two upper floors belonged to the restaurant. Customers would pay two shillings to consume as much fruit and nuts that they could eat with a cup of coffee, cream and brown bread and butter. Shearn's company advertised itself as the "World's Largest Fruitarian Stores".

The restaurant contained a fruit saloon luncheon room that became a popular meeting place for members of the London Vegetarian Society. Shearn cooperated with The Children's Realm, a children's vegetarian magazine published by the London Vegetarian Society and Vegetarian Federal Union. He was the first president of the British division of the Florists Telegraph Delivery Association. Shearn was the editor of The Practical Fruiterer and Florist.

Shearn visited the United States in 1933, where he received the title of "Ambassador of the Floral Kingdom of England".

Personal life and death Shearn was a vegetarian but preferred the term fruitarian. His diet consisted of fruit, nuts and vegetables with dairy products and eggs.

Shearn married Ella Masterson at St Giles in the Fields in 1914. The vegetarian meal served for over a hundred guests in a room decorated as a fruit and flower garden was a Brazil nut cutlet, mock chicken made from almonds and pine kernels, savoury nuts with cucumber and an egg gateau. He was Major John Benjamin Shearn.

Shearn died on 12 January 1938 in London.NoteTag|In the England & Wales Index of Wills and Administrations his place of death is listed at University College Hospital London, but The Observer obituary states that he died at his home. His fruit store was closed in 1961.

Selected publications

The Practical Fruiterer and Florist (3 volumes, 1935)