Late Duke of Westminster admitted £9billion riches contributed to lifelong depression
WHEN the late Duke of Westminster decided that the views at his country estate were being spoiled by the sight of the local golf club he took action — by moving the entire golf course.
But this seems to have been the one and only grand, aristocratic gesture Gerald Grosvenor ever made, despite his £9billion fortune.
In fact, Britain’s third richest man, who died on Tuesday aged 64, often said the wealth was a burden which had contributed to a life-long fight with depression.
While one Downton Abbey-era ancestor had happily flung around money on gigantic uncut emeralds and fleets of Rolls-Royces he saw his role in charge of so much wealth as just a gruelling job.
And that was simply to take care of the family fortune and vast estates — including 300 acres of London’s Belgravia and Mayfair in the family since 1677 — for future generations.
Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor had grown up thinking he would be a simple beef farmer in remote Northern Ireland, just like his dad
He once said: “Given the choice I would rather not have been born wealthy, but I never think of giving it up.
“I can’t sell it.
“It doesn’t belong to me.”
And while he often used his money for good — fighting against the poll tax and for social-housing — the responsibility could overwhelm him.
In 1998 the strain led to a full nervous breakdown when one day, he found he simply could not get out of bed.
Looking back later he said: “It has been an uphill struggle on occasions but life without challenge is no life at all.”
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In fact, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor had grown up thinking he would be a simple beef farmer in remote Northern Ireland, just like his dad.
His father only inherited the title in 1967, when Gerald was 15, from a brother who in turn had taken over the dukedom late in life, when their titled cousin had died childless.
Chain-smoking Gerald recalled the moment his father broke the news of his likely inheritance and the vast size of it: “It almost made me run for the door, slam it and keep running”.
The family traces its wealth back to the lucky moment a French ancestor who had helped William the Conqueror invade Britain in 1066 was handed the whole of Cheshire as a reward.
But Gerald, the Sixth Duke, never forgot the simple ways of what he remembered as a “Swallows and Amazon” rural childhood, spent on his father’s farm on an island in the middle of Lough Erne in County Fermanagh.
He once recalled: “The great thing was that my father allowed me to be a child without thinking that I was going to be a duke or that I should be different from my next-door neighbour.”
It was also a frugal childhood, during which he saved coins that came his way in a treasure-chest-shaped money box he kept for the rest of his life.
“The lessons of those times stayed with him too.
He proudly boasted of trudging around Eaton Hall near Eccleston in Cheshire — the family’s country pile since the 15th Century and site of the golf-club removal in 1993 — switching off lights.
He sent all four of his children to state primary schools and could not bear any kind of “fancy” food, even going so far as to brand ravioli “dreadful”.
Young Gerald, even after realising what future was in store for him, had hoped to enjoy a full-time military career before taking up the reins of the family business.
Winston Churchill had once remarked of the family: “The only time the Grosvenors were any good was when they were at war” and Gerald was keen to get stuck in.
But due to his father’s failing health, he took over the management of the family estates aged just 22.
Then when he was 28 in 1979 his father died.
He inherited the title, fortune . . . and vast responsibility.
However, he satisfied his military dreams by joining the Territorial Army, eventually rising to Major-General.
The duke fought a legal case against Westminster City Council in 1990 to ensure social housing flats on his land in Pimlico in central London were retained as low-cost accommodation
His sense of duty also saw him involved in charities and handing out money.
The duke donated £500,000 to the country’s farmers during the devastating foot and mouth outbreak in 2001 and he gave thousands of pounds to pay his workers’ poll tax, which he described as “insufferable”.
The duke also fought a legal case against Westminster City Council in 1990 to ensure social housing flats on his land in Pimlico in central London were retained as low-cost accommodation.
A previous duke had assigned properties to the council on a 999-year lease in 1937 with the stipulation the 532 flats be used only “for the working classes”.
The council had wanted to sell off the leaseholds, claiming the term “working class” no longer had any meaning.
The fuming duke won his case and the flats stayed as social housing.
Meanwhile, his own homes, as well as Eaton Hall, include the 22,000-acre shooting estate at Abbeystead, Lancs, where he was taken ill suddenly this week.
All in all he owned 131,100 acres across the UK alone — or 0.22 per cent of the entire land mass, versus the Queen’s measly 19,768 acres or 0.03 per cent.
He also owned investment properties around the world, as well as his own boar-hunting retreat in Spain.
The duke expanded the portfolio with an astute, professional property developer’s eye that was much admired.
But he was under no illusions about his success having much to do with his own skills.
Asked what advice he would give young entrepreneurs hoping to emulate his success, he replied: “Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror.”
Like his ancestor, the duke was also a very close friend of current royalty, in particular Prince Charles, just three years his senior.
Their friendship remained tight despite a scandal in 2007, when The News of the World reported he was a customer of a high-end escort service in New York.
Charles even asked his friend and confidante to act as mentor to Prince William.
And the young prince in turn became so close to Gerald’s son Hugh, now the new duke, that he asked him to be godfather to his son Prince George.
Both Prince William and Harry are also regulars at the hunting estate in Spain.
Meanwhile Gerald’s widow Natalia, 57, known as Tally, is godmother to William himself.
She is also distantly related to both the Queen and Prince Philip.
And for good measure she is also a direct descendant of George II and Russia’s Tsar Nicholas I.
The couple married in 1978 and as well as Hugh, now 25, they have three daughters — Lady Tamara, 36, Lady Edwina, 34, and Lady Viola, 23.
Both Gerald and Natalia had hated boarding school and, after sending their kids to a state primary on the Wirral put them in a private co-ed secondary day-school near Eaton Hall.
The duke later explained: “I want my children at home.
“I like to have tea with them in the evening.”
Tamara married one of Prince William’s best friends, Edward van Cutsem, in 2004 while Edwina wed TV historian Dan Snow in 2010.
Son Hugh is single — making him Britain’s most eligible bachelor.
But he has inherited far more than money, estates and a title from his dad, who said soon after the lad’s birth: “My main object will be to teach him self-discipline and a sense of duty.”
He added: “I do feel sorry for Hugh.
“He will be under enormous pressure.
“He’ll need to be robust mentally to survive.
“There are many pitfalls, when one inherits such an enormous amount of money.”
The moneymakers
THE duke’s property group Grosvenor owns 1,550 properties in 60 countries. Its portfolio and projects include:
❶ UK: 300 acres of London real estate including half of Mayfair
and most of Belgravia. Plus:
Liverpool: the Liverpool ONE development has more than 200 shops, and 500 flats.
Cheshire: Family home is the Eaton Estate, which includes three villages.
Lancashire: The 22,000-acre Abbeystead Estate has 22 tenants.
Cambridge: Trumpington Meadows will eventually have 1,200 homes.
Oxford: Planned suburb called Barton Park which has approval for up to 885 new homes.
Southampton: Building a huge complex in the cultural quarter.
Edinburgh: 600 homes, a hotel and student flats are being built on a former brewery.
Sutherland: The vast Reay Forest Estate covers more than 120,000 acres.
❷ IRELAND: Grosvenor is a co-investor in the Liffey Valley
Shopping Centre in Dublin.
❸ USA: Forty properties in including half the famous Wells Fargo bank building in Los Angeles, and 17 acres in Silicon Valley, California.
❹ JAPAN: Recently opened swish 99-flat Westminster Roppongi tower in Tokyo.
❺ CANADA: Annacis Island, 1,200 acres near Vancouver, is one of 13 Canadian assets.
❻ CHINA: Nine floors of a skyscraper in Beijing.
❼ FRANCE: More than 72,000 sq ft of shops and flats in central Lyon.
❽ SWEDEN: The Skårholmen shopping centre in Stockholm.
❾ SPAIN: 37,000-acre La Garganta near Conquista is a one of the largest hunting estates in western Europe.
❿ AUSTRALIA: Used to own large chunks of downtown Melbourne.