Sir John Spurling (Spurling variant)
Sir John Spurling (born 1939) is a British businessman who built up the pet insurer Pet Protect and founded PetPartners. He was appointed OBE in 2000 and KCVO in 2012 for charitable services.
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Variant spelling: this person bears the related surname Spurling, not Spurlin.
Sir John Damian Spurling, KCVO, OBE (born 1939) is a British businessman best known for building up the pet insurance company Pet Protect.[1] He is not the same person as the playwright John Spurling.
Career
Spurling was born in London in 1939 and educated in Johannesburg and London.[1] He worked in advertising, first for the Eldorado Ice Cream Company and then as an advertising manager, and in 1963 became a director of Kenya Advertising Corporation.[1] From 1970 to 1982 he was chairman and chief executive of the Kenyan agency Advertising Associates, which McCann-Erickson acquired in 1979.[1]
In 1984 he took over a small pet-insurance agency, Pet Protect, and expanded it considerably. He also agreed a deal under which the Kennel Club officially endorsed the insurer in return for a share of each policy.[1] According to The Telegraph, he sold Pet Protect to GE in 1997. His Who's Who entry says he stayed with the company until 2001.[1] When GE dropped the Kennel Club arrangement, the club invited him to start a new insurer. He founded PetPartners Ltd in 2002 and was its chairman and chief executive until 2009. Wikipedia says he has chaired PetPartners Inc., its US counterpart, since 2004.[1]
Charity and honours
Wikipedia records charitable work including the Animal Health Trust, and says he became chairman of the London Marathon in 2008 and a vice-president of the Kennel Club in 2011.[1] He was appointed OBE "for charitable services" in the 2000 New Year Honours.[2] He was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Honours for services to charity.[1]
See also
- Spurling (surname) · The Surname strong
Spurling is the fuller spelling from which Spurlin derives. Unlike Spurlin, it is well established in England, Australia and especially Bermuda as well as the United States. - John Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
John Spurling (born 1936) is a Kenyan-born English playwright, novelist and art critic who won the 2015 Walter Scott Prize for The Ten Thousand Things. - The Spurlin name outside the United States · Culture strong
Spurlin is an overwhelmingly American surname today, with about 98% of bearers in the United States. The spelling is older than American settlement: English archives record Spurlins in Middlesex and Bristol between 1670 and 1717, and 18th-century leases name a field called 'Spurlins' in Hertfordshire. Outside the U.S. the related form Spurling is far more common. - Notable Spurlins · People strong
An index of notable people surnamed Spurlin, with related Spurling-surname figures listed separately as variants.
References
- ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ John Spurling (businessman) — Wikipedia — Career, charity roles, KCVO 2012 (citing Who's Who, The Telegraph and The London Gazette) Reference
- ↑ New Year Honours: OBE civil (K–Z) — BBC News (December 1999) — "John Damian Spurling, For charitable services" News
Last reviewed 2026-09-24.