The girl who’s bagged Britain’s £9bn bachelor
Curtain factory boss’s daughter is dating world’s most eligible bachelor (who she happened to go to school with)
FOLLOWING his father’s death, he became Britain’s youngest billionaire and one of the world’s most eligible bachelors.
But if this picture of the Duke of Westminster is anything to go by, his heart has already been taken.
Yesterday it emerged that Hugh Grosvenor, 26, is dating recruitment consultant Harriet Tomlinson, also 26.
Photos of the pair, who went to school together, reveal they have been on a string of romantic holidays and sources say she is the ‘love of his life’.
The Duke inherited £9.3billion and became the world’s richest man under 30 when his father Gerald Grosvenor, the 6th Duke of Westminster, died of a heart attack aged 64 last August.
Miss Tomlinson, daughter of a curtain factory boss, grew up just a few miles from the Duke’s sprawling family seat, Eaton Hall, on the outskirts of Chester.
They both attended the £30,000-a-year Ellesmere College boarding school in Shropshire and Miss Tomlinson is understood to have been a ‘huge support’ to him after his father’s death.
The Duke inherited the fortune of his father – a close friend of senior royals – and mother Natalia even though he has two older siblings, as he was their only son. He also has a younger sister.
A source told the Sunday Mirror: ‘Hugh and Harriet are blissfully happy together. As a baby: The Duke with his parents They have a lot of shared interests and are both very down to earth and family-orientated.
‘She’s a really lovely girl and very much the love of his life.’
Miss Tomlinson and sister Grace, 23, were brought up by their mother Louise, 55, who used to work for Boots, and father Grahame, 81.
According to her LinkedIn online profile, Miss Tomlinson graduated from the University of Wales, Cardiff, with a degree in teaching four years ago, before studying for a public relations and event planning postgraduate diploma at University College London.
A keen runner, she has worked in events management, but is currently a consultant with property recruitment firm Deverell Smith, which is based in the City of London.
The Duke, who works for a trendy energy firm that transforms ground coffee into biofuel, inherited 300 acres across London’s Mayfair and Belgravia – two of the most expensive areas in the world – and has estates in Oxford and Scotland.
He is understood to have taken Miss Tomlinson on several holidays abroad, including a recent trip to California.
The young couple are believed to have stayed in the luxury Ventana resort on the Big Sur coast, which is renowned for its views of the Pacific and where rooms cost upward of £500 a night.
Photographs posted online show the pair with their arms around each other and drinking wine in front of a spectacular view, as well as the Duke, who is godfather to Prince George, joking around in a yellow Ford Mustang convertible.
Pictures from the Duke’s student days at Newcastle University, where he studied countryside management, had shown him drinking and with friends, leading to reports he could be at risk of squandering his inheritance.
But the source added: ‘Hugh likes to enjoy himself as much as anyone else and is far from a bore. But he is happiest when he is enjoying time with Harriet and their close circle.
‘He was left crushed when his father died but Harriet has been a huge support and is helping him to get used to his new responsibilities. They’re a lovely couple and deserve all the happiness in the world.’
Miss Tomlinson and the Duke of Westminster both declined to comment.