Mary Perkins Mary Perkins Dame Mary Lesley Perkins, (born 14 February 1944) is co-founder of Specsavers, the British retail opticians chain. Together with her husband, co-founder and chairman Doug Perkins, Dame Mary has three children, all of whom work for Specsavers, and are eventually expected to take over the privately owned company. She attended Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol. She then went to Cardiff University to train as an optometrist. At Cardiff, she met Doug Perkins, whom she would later marry. The couple established their first business in Bristol in the 1960s. This was a chain of opticians around Bristol, which they
Thiele (retail opticians) Thiele (retail opticians) Thiele is a chain of retail opticians headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company is owned by Jens Henrik Brandt (95%) and Profil Optik (5%). The company was founded in 1817 when Frederik Anton Thiele (1792-1859) was granted a royal license to "manufacture and sell any kind of astronomic, mathematical, chemical, physical, optical, mineralogical and mechanical instrument or device". His son Johan Christian Thiele, who had studied both at the College of Advanced Technology and abroad, took on the company following the death of his father in 1859. He expanded the business but died died just 39 years