The Duke of Westminster | |
|---|---|
 The Duke in the early 1900s | |
| Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire Custos Rotulorum of Cheshire | |
| In office 19 December 1905 – 15 April 1920 | |
| Monarchs | Edward VII George V |
| Preceded by | Earl Egerton |
| Succeeded by | Sir William Bromley-Davenport |
| Member of theHouse of Lords asDuke of Westminster | |
| In office 20 March 1900 – 19 July 1953 | |
| Preceded by | The 1st Duke of Westminster |
| Succeeded by | The 3rd Duke of Westminster |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor (1879-03-19)19 March 1879 Eaton Hall, Cheshire, United Kingdom[1] |
| Died | 19 July 1953(1953-07-19) (aged 74) Loch More, Sutherland, United Kingdom |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Lady Ursula Vernon Edward Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor Lady Mary Grosvenor |
| Parent(s) | Victor Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor Lady Sibell Lumley |
Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster,GCVO, DSO (19 March 1879 – 19 July 1953), was a British landowner. He was also noted for his support of theNazi ideology and his affair with French designerCoco Chanel.
Hugh was the son ofVictor Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor (1853–1884), the predeceased son of the1st Duke of Westminster, and Lady Sibell Lumley (1855–1929), daughter of the9th Earl of Scarborough. His mother later remarried the politicianGeorge Wyndham.[2]
After completing his education atEton, he briefly attended a French boarding school run byCount de Mauny at the age of nineteen. There were rumors suggesting that the count had made inappropriate advances toward some of his pupils.[3]
Grosvenor was known within family circles as "Bendor",[4] which was also the name of the racehorseBend Or, owned by his grandfather. Bend Or wonThe Derby in 1880, the year following Grosvenor's birth.[5] The name is a reference to the ancient lostarmorials of the family:Azure, a bend or, which were awarded to the Scrope family in the famous case of 1389 heard before the Court of Chivalry, known asScrope v Grosvenor.[6][7] His wifeLoelia wrote in her memoirs:
Of course everybody, even his parents and sisters, would normally have addressed the baby as "Belgrave" so they may have thought that any nickname was preferable. At all events it stuck, and my husband's friends never called him anything but "Bendor" or "Benny".[8]
His ancestral country estate was inCheshire with a 54-bedroomEaton Hall, consisting of 11,000 acres (45 km2) of parkland, gardens, and stables. The main residence contained paintings byGoya,Rubens,Raphael,Rembrandt,Hals, andVelázquez, among others. The Duke owned lodges in Scotland and France (theChâteau Woolsack) dedicated to the sport of hunting. According to hisTimes obituary (21 July 1953), "he was busy up to the day of his death in great schemes ofafforestation in Cheshire, in theLake District, and in Scotland."[9]
He owned two yachts, theCutty Sark and theFlying Cloud. He owned 17Rolls-Royce motor cars and a private train designed to facilitate travel from Eaton Hall directly into London, where his palatialtownhouse, namedGrosvenor House, was located.
Grosvenor House was closed as a private residence by December 1916,[10] and was later leased to the United States for use as the American Embassy.[11] By 1917 Bendor was occupying another Grosvenor Property,Bourdon House on Davies Street in Mayfair, which remained as his London home for the rest of his life.[12][13]
Lord Grosvenor had taken a commission with theRoyal Horse Guards and was in South Africa serving in theSecond Boer War when, in December 1899, he succeeded his grandfather. After a brief visit home, he returned in February 1900 to serve with theImperial Yeomanry as anADC toLord Roberts andLord Milner.[14] He resigned his commission in December 1901,[15] and was appointedcaptain of theCheshire (Earl of Chester's) Imperial Yeomanry the following month.[16] After the war, he invested in land in South Africa andRhodesia, and visited the colony with his wife in late 1902.[17] He was promoted tomajor in the Cheshire Yeomanry in 1906.[14]
In 1908, the Duke competed in theLondon Olympics as amotorboat racer for Great Britain.[18] On 1 April 1908, he was named honorary lieutenant-colonel of the16th Battalion, theLondon Regiment, a post he held until 1915.
During the First World War, the Duke volunteered for front-line combat. While attached to the Cheshire Yeomanry, he developed a prototypeRolls-Royce armoured car for use in France and Egypt. The Duke commanded the armoured cars of the regiment during their 1916 campaign in Egypt as part of theWestern Frontier Force under GeneralWilliam Peyton. He took part in the destruction of aSenussi force at theaction of Agagia on 26 February 1916.
On 14 March 1916, he led the armoured cars on a raid, destroying the enemy camp at Bir Asiso. Learning that the crews of HMTMoorina andHMSTara were being held in poor conditions atBir Hakeim, he led the nine armoured cars, together with three armed but un-armoured cars and a further 28 cars and ambulances, on theBir Hakeim rescue: a 120-mile (190 km) dash across the desert. The Senussi captors attempted to run away but British rescuers shot them. The prisoners attempted to stop the killings but failed. They had subsisted on little more than the snails in which the region abounded, but said their captors had not been overly cruel. However, the chief jailor responsible for the snail diet, a Muslim cleric nicknamed "Holy Joe", was hanged on general approval.[19]
In Monte Carlo in 1923, Grosvenor was introduced toCoco Chanel byVera Bate Lombardi. His affair with Chanel lasted ten years.[20]: 36–37 The duke gave her jewels, art, and purchased a home for Chanel in London'sMayfair district, and in 1927 gave her a parcel of land on theFrench Riviera atRoquebrune-Cap-Martin where Chanel built her villa,La Pausa.[21]
Westminster's technique in the courting of women led to variousapocryphal stories. He purportedly concealed a huge uncut emerald at the bottom of a crate of vegetables delivered to Chanel. Disguised as a deliveryman, Westminster appeared at Chanel's apartment with a bouquet of flowers.
The Duke was described as "a pure Victorian who had eyes for his shotgun, his hunters, his dogs … a man who enjoyed hiding diamonds under the pillow of his mistresses …"[22] He was known for being veryconservative and, later,right wing.
The Duke was notable for being opposed to homosexuality.[23] In 1931, the Dukeexposed his brother-in-lawWilliam Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp (1872–1938) as a homosexual to theKing andQueen. He reportedly hoped to ruin theLiberal Party through Beauchamp. The King was horrified, supposedly saying, "I thought men like that shot themselves."[24] Following Beauchamp's departure for the continent after the Duke had assembled sufficient evidence to incriminate him, forcing the Earl to resign his public offices, the Duke sent him a note which read, "Dear Bugger-in-law, you got what you deserved. Yours, Westminster."[25]
During the run-up to the Second World War, he supported various right-wing andanti-Semitic causes, including theRight Club. His anti-Semitic rants were notorious.[26]
In the summer of 1939, Westminster joinedThe Link as a member of its national council.[27] The British historianIan Kershaw wrote that Westminster "had a propensity to share some of the Nazis' delusions about Jews and Freemasons", which led him to join The Link.[28] During theDanzig crisis, Westminster was said to have been especially concerned about the prospect of the German strategical bombing of London because he owned so much of central London.[28] Along withLord Mount Temple,Lord Brocket, theDuke of Buccleuch,Lord Mottistone,Lord Arnold,Lord Sempill andLord Tavistock, the duke of Westminster lobbied the Chamberlain government to settle the Danzig crisis peacefully, preferably by Britain abandoning the commitment to defend Poland.[28] The British historianRichard Griffiths described Westminster as being both "strongly pro and anti-Semitic".[29] Griffiths described him as a member of a "hard core" pro-Nazi faction in the House of Lords, who continued to defend Nazi Germany in the summer of 1939, even as the Danzig crisis pushed Britain closer to war.[30] The main theme of the speeches of Westminster along with other pro-Nazi peers such asLord Redesdale, Lord Brocket, Lord Buccleuch, Lord Mottistone, and Lord Sempill, was that Britain had no business being involved in the Danzig crisis and should withdraw from the crisis to allow Germany to settle its dispute with Poland in whatever manner it wished to do.[30] In contrast to the unelected House of Lords, there were few MPs in the House of Commons who defended Germany in the summer of 1939, owing to the increasing unpopularity of Nazi Germany. Even pro-German MPs realised expressing such views might cost them their seats in the next general election. Griffiths described the pro-Nazi MPs during the Danzig crisis such asArchibald Ramsay andC.T. Culverwell as "eccentrics".[30]
In her bookThe Light of Common Day,Lady Diana Cooper reminisced back to 1 September 1939. She and her husband, the prominent ConservativeDuff Cooper, were lunching at London'sSavoy Grill with the Duke of Westminster. She recalled:[31]
When he [the Duke of Westminster] added thatHitler knew after all that we were his best friends, he set off the powder-magazine. "I hope", Duff spat, "that by tomorrow he will know that we are his most implacable and remorseless enemies". Next day "Bendor", telephoning to a friend, said that if there was a war it would be entirely due to the Jews and Duff Cooper.
In September 1939, after Britain declared war on theNazi Germany on 3 September 1939 following theGerman invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, Westminster hosted two meetings at his house with various pro-Nazi peers and MPs. In this meeting, they discussed a way to make a negotiated peace with Germany.[28] The Foreign Secretary,Lord Halifax, heard reports that the meetings at Westminster's house were "of a verydefeatist character".[28]
The Duke, known for his pro-German sympathies, was reportedly instrumental in influencing his former mistress,Coco Chanel, to use her association withWinston Churchill to attempt to broker a bilateral peace agreement between Britain and Germany.[32] In late 1943 or early 1944, Chanel and her lover, German spyHans Günther von Dincklage, undertook such an assignment. Codenamed "Operation Modellhut", it was an attempt involving theBritish embassy in Madrid and Chanel to influence Churchill, and thereby persuade the British government to negotiate a separate peace with Germany. This mission as planned ultimately met with failure, as Churchill had no interest.[33]
The Duke was married four times and was divorced thrice.
Apart from his four marriages, the Duke had multiple love affairs and was known to make presents to his lover of the moment. After his dalliance with Coco Chanel, he was fascinated by the BrazilianAimée de Heeren,[37] who was not interested in marrying him, but to whom he gave significant jewelry, once part of theFrench Crown Jewels.[citation needed]
The Duke died ofcoronary thrombosis at Loch More Lodge on his Scottish estate inSutherland in July 1953, aged 74. He was buried in the churchyard ofEccleston Church nearEaton Hall, Cheshire[9] following his death.
His large estate attracted then-recorddeath duties of £18,000,000, which took between July 1953 and August 1964 to pay off to theInland Revenue.[38]
He was survived by two daughters. His titles and the entailed Westminster estate passed to his cousin,William Grosvenor, and thence to the two sons of his youngest half-uncleLord Hugh Grosvenor (killed in action in 1914). The title is now held byHugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster.[39]
| Honorary titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire 1905–1920 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Duke of Westminster 1899–1953 | Succeeded by |
