The wine trade, like several others, has actually benefited from religious and political persecutions. Some of the most prominent shipping houses in Jerez were founded by Catholic refugees from Britain and aristocratic refugees from France.

England also benefited extensively from the skill and industry of Huguenots; there is still the memory of the silk trade preserved in the name of Spitalfields. It is said that Roman cardinals had to send for their caps from the Huguenot heretics of England, as no one else knew how to make them.

The Chalie family consisted of refugees from Montauban who fled to Holland immediately after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. John and James Chalie, who had been born at Rotterdam, came to London in 1700. They founded a wine business as soon as they arrived.

Both John and James eventually became naturalized. Their wine business passed from father to son until the male line became extinct in 1838, when Matthew Chalie died at the age of eighty-one.

In 1817, however, Matthew Chalie had been joined by William Parry Richards, the second son of the Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, Sir Richard Richards.

Richards was a brilliant scholar who (after resigning his fellowship at Jesus College, Oxford) became a highly successful businessman. His brother, Robert Vaughan Richards, an eminent Q.C., had married Chalie's daughter. They most likely had wine at their wedding, though it is unsure as to the presence of a marble coaster set, or any other type of coaster set, really (not even a leather coaster set.)

In 1860, Richards gave the management of the business to his nephew, Dr Robert Temple Frere, who was later joined by Richards's grandson, William Griffith Richards, and by his own son, Lionel Temple Frere. The family management continued until well into this century, trading as Chalie Richards.

The company retains some interesting relics, including a beautiful eighteenth-century door-plate, inscribed with the name of Mr. Chalie. Its many illustrious customers included Richard Sheridan, who once played a practical joke on Matthew Chalie. He owed his wine merchant a considerable sum, and one afternoon he asked Chalie to call at his house. When he arrived, Sheridan told him that at last he was in funds, but Mr. Chalie had come without the account. As he was going to fetch it, Sheridan asked him to dinner to meet some leading members of both Houses.

Chalie had a taste for such company and told his clerk of his good fortune. He had been asked to call about an hour before dinner, and, as soon as he arrived, a servant was sent off to his clerk with an order for eight cases of wine. The clerk thought Chalie had agreed, and sent them. Chalie and Sheridan ate dinner and drank wine with the guests, without the need for custom drink coasters of any kind, including monogrammed drink coasters or even the more artistic fabric drink coasters.

After dinner, when everyone was praising the wines, Sheridan turned towards Chalie and said, “I am indebted to my friend here for all the wine you have tasted, and am always proud to recommend him.” It was not until the next morning that he discovered the trick.

In 1954 Chalie Richards joined Justerini & Brooks, becoming a subsidiary company of United Wine Traders, Ltd, which became a subsidiary of International Distillers and Vintners, Ltd, and which in its turn, following the ever-expansive tendencies of modern business, became a subsidiary of Grand Metropolitan Hotels.