Tributes have been paid to the sixth Duke of Westminster, the Northern Ireland-born billionaire landowner, who has died at 64.
Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, a close friend of the Royal family, died on Tuesday afternoon, having suddenly become ill.
Born in Omagh in 1951, the landowner was said to be worth about $10.8 billion dollars (€9.7bn), according to Forbes, making him the 68th richest billionaire in the world, and third in the UK.
He owned 77 hectares (190 acres) in Belgravia, adjacent to Buckingham Palace and one of London’s most expensive areas, as well as thousands of acres in Scotland and Spain.
The Grosvenor family’s spokeswoman said on Tuesday: “It is with the greatest sadness that we can confirm that the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor (64) died this afternoon at Royal Preston Hospital. He was taken there from the Abbeystead Estate in Lancashire where he had suddenly been taken ill.”
The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were “deeply shocked and greatly saddened” by the sudden death, a Clarence House spokeswoman said.
In 1973, when he was 22, he became trustee of the Grosvenor Estate and was forced to abandon his dream of a career as a professional soldier in his uncle’s regiment, the 9th/12th Lancers.
When his father Robert died in 1979, he became the sixth Duke of Westminster aged just 27.
He succeeded his father to become chairman of Grosvenor Holdings, the commercial arm of the Grosvenor Estate.
An advocate of change in the Lords, he quit the Conservative Party in 1993 after it proposed the Bill on Leasehold Reform, which would have had a huge effect on his massive London landholdings.
He also paid thousands of pounds to some of his workers to help them meet the poll tax – which he described as “insufferable”.
The duke once said that his life would have been easier if he had sold his estate to live in the Bahamas, but said that “would not be responsible”, and also insisted that he would “rather not have been born wealthy”.
Private
In 2000, he spoke for the first time about suffering a nervous breakdown and the cloud of depression which overcame him in 1998 after the pressures of businesses and making 500 public appearances a year overcame him.
His family life has been notably private. The duke married Natalia Phillips in 1978 and they had one son and three daughters.
He also spoke publicly about wanting to ensure his own children were instilled with a commitment to using their wealth responsibly.
Speaking about his son and heir Hugh in 1993, he said: “He’s been born with the longest silver spoon anyone can have, but he can’t go through life sucking on it.
“He has to put back what he has been given.”
The duke is succeeded by his son and is survived by his wife, and daughters Lady Tamara, Lady Edwina and Lady Viola.
PA