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Spinneys is a supermarket chain in the Middle East which began as railway provision merchants, and expanded to a grocery firm importing British Empire goods to the Mandate Palestine.〔(Dubai FAQs information guide - Spinneys )〕 The largest shareholder and manager of the brand is the Dubai-based private equity firm The Abraaj Group. == History == The supermarket was founded by Arthur Rawdon Spinney (CBE), who, having served in the Staffordshire Yeomanry〔George Colin Lawder Bertram, ''Antarctica, Cambridge, conservation and population: a biologist's story'', G.C.L. Bertram, 1987, p.28〕 and later on the staff of General Allenby,〔Meir Shalev, Barbara Harshav, ''Esau: a novel'', Harper Collins Publishers, 1994, p.19〕 set up operations in the suburbs of Alexandria, Egypt in 1924, which initially formed and organized the provision department of the Palestine Railways.〔''The Near and Middle East who's who'', Near and Middle East Who's Who Publ. Co., 1947, p.256〕 He took over transporting contract to Mandate Palestine administration from two pioneering New Zealanders, Norman & Gerald Nairn, who established the first cross-desert bus service between Damascus & Baghdad following the First World War.〔John Murchison Munro, ''The Nairn way: desert bus to Baghdad'', Caravan Books, 1980, p.88〕 Setting up his import and shipping headquarters in Haifa, he later sold imported English goods from the Jaffa Road store, which were then a novelty in Mandate Palestine and Syria through his two companies Spinney's Ltd., and Full-worth Ltd.,〔''The Near and Middle East who's who'', Near and Middle East Who's Who Publ. Co., 1947, p.256〕 which contrasted with local merchants who only sold goods sourced from the region and were unfamiliar to the British living and serving there. His commercial position, and involvement with the Palestine Commissioner allowed him to also hold the post of a trustee for Haifa early in the Second World War.〔Great Britain and the East: Volume 55, 1940, p297〕 During the Second World War Rawdon Spinney also served as the Hungarian Consul General in Palestine,〔List of accessions to repositories, H.M. Stationery Off., 1972, p.90〕 having moved house to Jerusalem, with two stores operated at the Spinney's (Spinney's Ltd., Haifa) Greek Colony branch, and Mamillah Road premises until 1949.〔Gillian Grant, ed., ''Historical Photographs of the Middle East From the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford'', Catalogue, BRILL, 1985, p.33〕 Initially ''Spinneys'' branches were located in the major regional cities frequented by British subjects via the railway line: Alexandria, Cairo, Haifa, Acre where it operated the Kabri Mineral Factory〔''The Jewish review'', Volume 3, Jewish Teachers' Seminary and People's University, New York, 1945, p.252〕〔High quality mineral water used to make soda water; Ruth Gruber, ''Israel without tears'', 1950, p.48〕 and Damascus. Since mid-1920s Haifa branch, where Spinney married Cecil Joan Glegg in 1928, and was later the President of The Haifa Rotary Club,〔Watson, J.L.A., ed., Rotary Report from Haifa, Israel: Jewish, Arab, and British members still meet despite machine guns, grenades, and the cross fire of snipers, ''The Rotarian'', Vol. 74, No. 3, March 1949, Rotary International, p.7〕 also served as agents for Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Traders & Shippers Ltd.〔''Orbis, encyclopaedia of extra-European countries: a survey and directory of political, industrial, financial, cultural and scientific organisations in the countries of Africa, America, Asia and Australasia'', Europa publications limited, 1938, p.41〕 Due to interruption to railway services,〔Deborah Bernstein, ''Constructing boundaries: Jewish and Arab workers in mandatory Palestine'', SUNY Press, 2000, p.168〕 on which ''Spinneys'' depended, with the start of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine it moved its Haifa branch, from Mandate Palestine to Baghdad. Mr Spinney joined the UK establishment when his daughter Elizabeth married John Slim, 2nd Viscount Slim in 1958 at Kyrenia, Cyprus where he had a presence since 1949. In the 1960s Arthur Spinney retired from active participation in the managing of the stores, and died in August 1973 in Littlehampton, Sussex, where he was buried in the Crematorium.〔(Gleggs from Todstack Farm Stonehaven )〕 After the 14 July Revolution, its Baghdad store was relocated in 1961 to Dubai, UAE where it had operated since 1942 in Al Nasr Square, Deira. In later years other stores were opened across the Persian Gulf region.〔(Spinneys - History )〕 In 1967 the first Spinneys store in Beirut was open. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spinneys」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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