Young Duke takes charge of £8bn estate
‘Until now the new Duke had lived a life of relative obscurity, save for a 21st birthday party that cost several millions’
At the age of 25, Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor has found himself the third richest person in Britain. The son of the late Duke of Westminster, who died on Tuesday, will inherit the bulk of his father’s fortune, estimated at £8.3 billion, and become head of an estate that includes 300 acres in Mayfair and Belgravia. The new Duke has lived a life of relative obscurity, studying at Newcastle and Oxford before working for a biofuel company.
IT is not something he would have at all wished for himself, but at the age of 25 Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor has been left contemplating the fact that overnight he has become Britain’s most eligible bachelor.
Following the sudden death of the Duke of Westminster at the age of 64 on Tuesday, the young account manager has inherited his father’s title and estate, making him one of the richest men in the world.
Until now the new Duke had lived a life of relative obscurity for someone so gilded – save for a memorable 21st birthday party rumoured to have cost several million. But his sudden elevation will put him in the spotlight as never before, raising the question: just who is the seventh Duke of Westminster?
By inheriting the bulk of his father’s fortune, estimated at £8.3 billion by Forbes, the new Duke becomes the third richest person in the UK and the 68th wealthiest in the world.
The new Duke will not pay inheritance tax because the Grosvenor estate is run as a trust, much like a company, rather than being his personal property. Trustees, including the Duke, must instead pay tax on the income they receive.
At the heart of the family fortune is a property portfolio which includes 300 acres in two of London’s most expensive neighbourhoods, Mayfair and Belgravia, as well as huge tracts in Oxford, Cheshire, Scotland and Spain.
Among the first decisions the new Duke will be required to make is whether to abandon the family’s Glorious Twelfth shoot tomorrow on the Abbeystead estate, in Lancashire – where his father was taken ill – or carry on as normal in tribute to the late Duke.
Even though Hugh was born to huge wealth, and was brought up amid the splendid surroundings of Eaton Hall, the family’s 10,872-acre Cheshire estate, his parents tried to endow him with as normal a childhood as possible.
The former Duke spoke in 1992 of how he was seeking to teach his son “self-discipline and a sense of duty”.
Along with his three sisters, he was educated at a state primary school on The Wirral before attending a private day school, Mostyn House. The children later attended Ellesmere College in Shropshire, which charges boarding fees of up to £10,296 a term.
Hugh, whose previous title was Earl Grosvenor, studied countryside management at Newcastle University, and later attended Oxford.
After graduating, he worked in estate management for his father’s Grosvenor Group, before becoming an accounts manager at Biobean, which collects waste coffee and converts it into biofuel.
But it was inevitable that Earl Grosvenor would come to public attention and he did so in some style.
The occasion was his 21st birthday party in 2012, held at Eaton Hall and rumoured to have cost as much as £5 million. Prince Harry was among the 800 guests, who were entertained by the comic Michael McIntyre and the hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks.
Photographers were banned and the security was so tight that vehicles taking guests to the party had been sealed with tape to prevent gate-crashers.
The following year, Hugh became godfather to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child, Prince George.
The Cambridges said yesterday that they were “very sad to learn” of the Duke of Westminster’s death.
It is only as a result of Britain’s ancient laws of primogeniture that Hugh has inherited his father’s title. He is, af- ter all, preceded by his older sisters Lady Tamara, 36, who is married to one of the Duke of Cambridge’s closest friends, Edward van Cutsem, and Lady Edwina, 34, the wife of television presenter Dan Snow.
By virtue of being male, however, Hugh now inherits both the title and the estate, although his sisters – including the youngest, Lady Viola, 23 – will benefit from substantial trust funds.
Things might have been different had a Bill seeking to introduce equal rights of succession for all first-born children made it through parliament.
The “Downton Abbey law” – named after the plot involving Lady Mary’s exclusion from inheriting the estate – was drafted in 2013. But the Bill failed to make it past the committee stage, meaning all eyes are now on Hugh Grosvenor, seventh Duke of Westminster.
Ionce asked the daughter of an earl why the rules of primogeniture were so unfair. Most of us would want to treat our children fairly in matters of inheritance, but with the nobility, it’s winner takes all: by tradition, everything goes to the first-born male, the family seat along with the title.
“It’s because the survival of the group is considered more important than the individual,” she explained. Male primogeniture keeps land and estates together, and upholds the continuity of the landed classes. Divide estates up equally, and the system collapses.
Except that, in terms of character, it doesn’t always work successfully. The last Marquess of Bristol, for example, “charming but empty of soul”, burned through his inherited £35 million and died in penury aged 44 of a surfeit of cocaine and other excesses.
Clearly, in any family, it doesn’t always follow that the first-born male is the most conscientious and ready to accept “noblesse oblige” – a privilege that brings responsibilities. So why not change the rules so inheritance is bestowed on whichever offspring is best suited to the role?
The fresh-faced young man who will now become the 7th Duke of Westminster has inherited a vast portfolio of property and estates. Is there any good reason why one of his elder sisters shouldn’t be the beneficiary? As landed estates are increasingly now separated from titles in aristocratic wills, it has been argued, most eloquently by Victoria Lambert of this parish – in private life, the Countess of Clancarty – that first-born daughters should surely be equally entitled to inherit both title and property. The “hares”, a blue-blooded campaign group, is lobbying to end male primogeniture in the peerage, particularly since inheritance law has changed with regard to the monarchy.
True, we live in an age where everything, from same-sex marriage to educational choice, is now advanced in the name of “equality”. Unfortunately, aristocracy is by definition a hierarchical tradition, and it might seem incongruous to submit it to such a principle. Lady Kinvara Balfour argues that aristocratic women go through life feeling “second best” due to the privileging of male relatives. Well, everything is relative: most of us would feel “second best” to Lady Kinvara Balfour.
Genuine equality would completely dismantle all rank. A society sincere about abolishing “inequality” would also abolish all titles, all honorifics, the House of Lords and the monarchy. It has, of course, been tried, but new hierarchies of wealth and dynasty – as in the US – soon appear.
The British usually prefer incremental to revolutionary change, and it may one day happen that ducal daughters have the same entitlements as sons, or that a duke will choose which of his offspring is best suited to inherit the title. Aristocracy itself is evolving: it no longer has the celebrity appeal it did when every gossip columnist was on the hunt for naughty doings among the toffs. New celebs have taken their place: the present Duke of Norfolk has been, on occasion, introduced as “David Frost’s brother-in-law”.
Nevertheless, Downton Abbey’s worldwide success shows that peers of the realm can still command a certain glamour, and when aristocrats behave well and do their duty they are generally locally respected. The recently departed Duke said he would have been happy to live as a beef farmer in Co Fermanagh, where he was born. I’m sure there is many an Ulster beef farmer who would be more than happy to be Duke of Westminster.