How a 1951 hunting dispute gave rise to the Guinness World Records book

The idea behind the Guinness World Records book emerged in November 1951 during a shooting party in County Wicklow, Ireland, where Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery, argued with companions about the fastest game bird in Europe. Unable to find a definitive answer among the reference works they carried, Beaver observed that similar questions were debated nightly in more than 80,000 pubs across Britain and Ireland, none of which could provide a reliable response. He concluded there was an opening for a book that could settle such disputes with documented records. The project was developed with the help of journalists Norris and Ross McWhirter, who had been introduced to Beaver by athlete and journalist Christopher Chataway. The first edition was published on 27 August 1955 as a 198-page volume and sold roughly 10,000 copies in its opening week. The book gradually expanded beyond factual reference to cover achievements in sport, technology, culture, the arts and the natural world. The publishing operation became Guinness Publishing in 1990 and was renamed Guinness World Records in 1999. It has been owned by the Jim Pattison Group, headquartered in Canada, since 2009.