Clarence Hatry

Clarence Charles Hatry (1888–1965) was a company promoter, financier, bankrupt, bookseller and publisher. The fall of the Hatry group in September 1929 is widely cited as a contributing factor to the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith described Hatry as "one of those curiously un-English figures with whom the English periodically find themselves unable to cope."

Hatry began his professional career as an insurance clerk in London's West End. Shrewd fellow-promoters remember that "Clarence" made his first killing in silk, and then recouped the ensuing bankruptcy in insurance, through City Equitable. City Equitable was a modest reinsurance business when it was bought from German and Austrian owners in 1914 for £60,000; Hatry reorganised it in six months and sold a controlling interest for £250,000 to Gerald Lee Bevan and an associate called Peter Haig Thomas.

Hatry found the First World War a chance to profiteer, and by 1921 he was the respected director of 15 corporations.

He had already come to the attention of the American public for a different reason: transporting Eastern European immigrants to the United States and Canada.

In 1924 his Commercial Corporation of London failed for $3.75 million. In some manner, three successive bankruptcies had left him successively richer. He built a new business empire, with investments in photographic supplies, cameras, vending machines, and loan offices.

In early 1929 investors flocked to the Hatry group: General Securities Ltd. (of which Henry Paulet, 16th Marquess of Winchester, was chairman); Austin Friars Trust, Ltd.; Dundee Trust; Oak Investment Corp.; Associated Automatic Machines Corp.; Drapery Trust; Retail Trade Corp.; Photomaton Parent Corp.; and Far Eastern Photomaton Corp.

Photomaton Parent Corporation Limited was set up by Clarence Hatry in 1928 to operate photograph machines in hundreds of public places such as railway stations and amusement parks.

By 1929 he had returned to the top table of corporate finance, and had worked out his greatest project, a merger of steel and iron concerns into the $40 million United Steel Companies. Just as this deal was to be consummated, the Stock Exchange Committee caught him borrowing $1 million on worthless paper. On 20 September 1929, the fraud became known and the Hatry empire collapsed.

Hatry was not shy in displaying his wealth: his office suite had ornate bathrooms, he had swimming pools in his Mayfair homes, a yacht, and a racing stable.

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