De La Rue then as a stationer and printer. In 1831 he secured his business a Royal Warrant to produce playing cards. In 1855 it started printing postage stamps and in 1860 banknotes. In 1896, the family partnership was converted into a private company. In 1921, the de la Rue family sold their interests. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1947. Then called "Thomas De La Rue & Company, Limited", it changed its name in 1958 to "The De La Rue Company Limited". A takeover bid for De La Rue was made by the Rank Organisation plc in
Rue de la Pompe white villas, except where a railway ran through a deep cutting in the chalk. A train actually roared and panted by, and choked me with its filthy steam as I looked round in stupefaction on the ruins of my long-cherished hope." At what is now a junction of Rue de la Pompe and Rue de Siam, between buildings numbered 43 and 45, there used to stand a hotel of unidentified name. In 1877-1880 it was inhabited by Carlos de Borbón, the Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain, his wife Margarita de Bourbon-Parme, their 5 children and the quasi-court of