1954-01-16 — Page 7

P

FROM

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1954,

BANK

CLERK

TO MAN OF MILLIONS

RINCE LOUIS and Sir Ernest Cassel were born within two

yeurs of which other. But there any com- parison ends.

Prince Louis, the Serene Highness, on Christian name with terma from his youth half the royalty of Europe, exclusive belonged to the

little world of European monarchy in the days of its decline.

Sir Ernest Cassel, the yo of a modest Jewish fanker- moneylender in the town of Cologne, represented a world.

1 life, in

new

the material

atre, honest the most extra-

Ordinary sutres; Stoles of his

O any other day

The world

of

Prince LotiİN

and Sir Ernest were together

1 comic

when both were deadl und the son of une marted the Brand-taughter of the oile

Torrefore Sa Ernest Cassel, Alt-e maklionaire, plays

$40 mil p

1.

The the story

Mintballens.

his backgrompt, this

furned their way of life.

$

Clothes and a violin

H

was born

un March

A runaway Royal romance between a German Prince and a Commoner saw the start of the Mountbatten family. Of that romance a son was born, Prince Louis of Battenberg. He became First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty, was sneered at as a German when the 1914-18 war came, and resignod, later changing his name to Mountbatten. He had a son, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Into the story of the Fabulous Mountbattens now

comes

different figure, Sir Ernest Cassel, the German-born solf-made multi-millionaire.

3.

Lady Louis, aged 9, with her grandfather,

18a2, 40 Cologne the Yong- 11iz est chuki of Jakobs Cagel, father was a money-lender and private banker in a small way

With adolewence Eruest noun developed Wash 14) Ezen pe From the routining; provincialism of Cologne, and at the age of 18 Berived in Liverpool as un- migrant, with a bag of clothes end his violin.

He joined the Laverpoot frm od Blessig, Braun and Co, Krain and the merchants, us a clerk,

these

fragmentary records

early

ان

that years suggest

of

race Hnd

interest Thes

The bound these men together.

their wrb

communications quivered at the slightest tourh But they kept between them t incredibly accurate network of cestonue, political and financial Intelligence at the highest level.

They could withdraw support Jr. provide

klitional funds sade

Suma ut there, eve mutuense

у

13 1889 which he had moved from 2. Orme Square, In Bays- water, where the present Lord art Larly Harewood now live.

He started to indulge in rich men's pursuits, not because they gave him any particular pleasure, but becaure he felt it was

essential concomitant of his in- creasing importarice. lo buy

He

THE FABULOUS MOUNTBATTENS

singular contrast to the urbane ended with Ernest Cassel being wits with whom the helr ap- received as his best friend by the dying King, who rose from parent way surrounded,

his death-bed and dressed as a mark of honour and affection to receive him a matter of hours before he breathed his last.

But the Prince did not suffer fools gladly, and Cassel was no fool,

In

Above all, the future Edward

Rumour has made much of VII had a special predilection Cassel's alleged willingness tu for Jews. He liked their inter- pay the Prince's gambling debis national outlook, appreciated and other expenses Incurred their ability and made of a life of pleasure. their contacts. He was also fur the from

to enjoying averso

extremely rich

hospitality oft

men.

HIS

use

King's friends

TIS own finances were often in a precarious state, and it suited him to get sound advice combined with such lavish entertainment.

13

be sald The most that can about such statements that they were never anything more substantial than malicious gossip.

Many men would have been pleased to bring order into their smancial affairs with the help of Casel's unerring eye for the profiable placement of invest-

the Prince ments. That able to do this is certain.

But then there was no neces His inner circle of friends ity for his gratitude to fast the frivolitics included three of the Sassoon whole

reign, wher

submerged brothers and Sir Felix Semon, became increasingly who became the King's confi- in pressing affairs of State. dentin physician. Their Auence

exaggeration

It would be an at Court became the !ubject of much intermittent to pretend that Cusset influenced of State to any nolice- criticism, but the

tradi- affuira more Uonal walks of British society able degree. were equally represented,

The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Lord Lard Carrington.

Redesdale. three

and

Started the 'Tube'

brilliant game shots-the Hon. He had only one Evan

Charteris, Lord de Grey

211

major

رابي

session in foreign affairs. and in this he allowed emotion and the Hon. Harry Stonor - were constantly attendance, to outweigh his judgment. as was a generous contingent of

He maintained a strong aftec- started the society beauties of the rare books, paintings, the Han, Mrs George Keppel, tion for the country he had lelt objels d'art and the fine silver. Lady Puget, Mrs Greville, Con- so young, and took the initiative Not that he could distinguish a suelo Duchess of Marlborough, pince of Sevres from a piece of Lady Troubridge, Lady Lonsdale strengthen Meissen, but if the price was and Mrs Cornwallis West. of high enough and its authenticity indubitably proved, it trund

with lighting rapidity and sterrey from une corner to

another of their financi puren und fluency deetstone

is

+ 1

Countries.

titial salary was 15s, u werk. Thus, in the days of his success,

he was to deny.

"I never KO!

less than two pounds a week. I

was it so cheap

he remarked.

us all that."

Two years later he had be

Cuzne

-

the politi-

IL

score

Still building

way into his collection.

#

DUT

real flowering of BUT

Cussel's financial genius still Hard as he lay in the future. worked, Une sluice gates great riches were not yet open to him.

of

j

He also developed Interest and a measure of judge He was suil building up ment in the breeding and racing of horses, and by 1890 was ruc- handsome competence for those

as clerk in the Anglo- Egyptian Bank int Paris, but Franco- the outbreak of the

War 1870 GIR 1'rusdan pelled him to leave. Shurtly ufter this it came to his notice days when, in 1877, he met ing his own hortes, although the

that Mr Louis Bischoffsheim, the senior Partner in the Jewish financial house of Bisch- offsheim an! Goldschmidt in London, was looking for a con- fidential clerk.

The firm received hundreds of applications, most of them in the flowery and self-adulatory But phraseology of those days, one of them was three lines long and read:

บ

One other principat

member not

contrast

LO

on

10

between

occasions various

the Lies Great Britain and Germany.

Towards the end of the cen- tury he turned to the country of his adoption for his two

newest enterprises. One was 10: railways, long his stand-by, and the other in the developing and rewarding field of armament.

He was the moving spirit in the formation of the Eicelric' Traction Company and in the Central London Hallway which constructed

the original "Two- penny Tube,"

In 1897, after acquiring majority interest in the Barrow Naval and Shipbuilding Con- struction Company, he amalga- mated it with Vickers Sons and Company, acquiring for the new Gun and combine the Maxim Nordenfek Companies, ploncer in the construction of the auto- matic weapons which were re- volutionising land warfare at the Ume.

And now a Knight

H

E took a leading part for

years to many

come in underwriting the financial issues of the growing and expanding Vickers complex.

To crown his growing wealth and position the Prince of Wales W39 able to persuade Queen Victoria to raise him to the dignity of Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. He became Sir Ernest Cassel

And the beginning of the year 1901 saw the death of Queen Victoria and the accession to the Throne of Edward VII. Cassel's Arlend was not now beir ap. parent, but King Emperor.

th: In that same year came wedding which was to have an influence on the Throne of day.

10

mar.

Cassel's daughter Maud ried. Her husband was Wilfred Ashley, a grandson of the Earl of Shaftesbury

A daughter of that marriage was Edwina, later to marry Lord Louis Mountbatten, the son of Prince Louis of Buttenberg. And it was to Edwina that Sir

Ernest left a large part of millions,

series

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NEXT SATURDAY-the rich Sir Ernest dles a lonely old man bla granddaughter meets Louis Mouribatten.. Lord

and great wealth Again he can hardly be said aristocracy

combine in marriage... the bis Prince to have influenced

"playboy" of the entourage was also

and King, who was, by birth, wage in mot for the

Lady Louls Marquess do British the

AS almost

German

as Cassel days of Lord and

another Prince He taught himself, by slicer

Soveral, who was with the Por- himself, and who betrayed, If Mountbatten..

bo Edward will-power, because there was tuguese Legation

London. in

only in his gutturals, the of Wales, later to no pampered childhood training Poled, witty and urbane, he

Influence in his speech which, VIII, comes into the story. To fall back on, how to ride to was the complete hounds and how to shoot. and Cassel, yet a firm regard united with Cassel, remained strong to

the end of his days. put up a very good igure in the two men.

Albert This Cassel's contacts with both pursuits.

of Soveral produced a mot about Ballin and other influential Ger- abridged from the pertait his friend which gained great mans, his sedulous lobbying of "Manifest Destiny," by Brian

currency.

anyone likely to assist in halting Connell, and published by the Casella at 158. This series in lililo Not long after Edward became the rising tension between

were b two countries,

World Copyright. King he went to see the great

when compared with Annette, doughter of Robert

Club declined to make theatrical success by Mr Oscar account Dert Jocky

the mounting antipathy Thompers Maxwell,

Croli of

him a member until

dozen Wilde at the St James's Theatre. gendered in King Edward by They House, Croft, Darlington,

years later.

When he saw Soveral,

the maniacal tactlessness of his were married the next year,

quired whether he also had seen

iThe and Cassel marked his wedding

Importance of

Being How the Kaiser. Ernest." "No, Sire," the diplo day by becoming a naturalised British subject.

inal replied, "but I have seen the

of being importance

Ernest

point From almost every view,

their distinct except physient resemblance, the Prince and the commoner had, at least on the surface, little in common.

Snobbery as well

THE deliebte snobbery of that Cagsel."

institution did not prevent

from Cassel

scoring the sucial triumph which set the seal on his Anancial success.

In 1870 they had a daughter, Maud. Something in this fresh, young Englishwoman released In Cassel uit the pent-up emu- tion repressed under the forbid- ding exterior of a man, still in Dear Sir, apply

for the the middle twenties, already

For in 1890 he became private position in your vilice and refer hardened by

banker and financial adviser to dozen years of you to my former chiefs, Messrs fanatically hard work in an agɩ the Prince of Wales. And

even Elzbacher, Cologne, Yours sin

when there were no privileges time went on he became

and was, in that, cerely, Ernest Cassel.

more than without birth.

fact, the Prince's closest per- That association

Д

218

he

in-

Did he pay debts?

of

ASSEL, dark, stocky, with

slightly furtive air, was e

First rung of success his wife and daughter, and this continued even after Queen puritan.

MASSEL'S clear, trenchunt and uncluttered mind hud holst- ed him on the Brat rung of the ladder of success. Ho WAS offered the post and brought to It the astonishing qualities of Arm judgment, strong will and unerring fair which were to be his constant stand-bys.

and

the Prince

He was absolutely devoted to sonal friend. softening of his edges might Victoria died and have resulted in his unrecorded

became Edward VII. incorporation in the ranks of the rising and prosperous middle It was a dazzling coterie Into and taciturn class

inter which the grim had not calamity

Cassel was now introduced, vened

Blunt, direct in his speech, Three years after their mar- rlage his wife died of consump- contemptuous of smali talk, but tion. At that time his fortune with a gift of brusque repartee provided A have stood at the respectable figure he must

of £150,000, little more than a sum he was to acquire over the next 40 years,

IIc rose with astonishing hundredth part of the total rapidity. Within a year of start- ing with a salary of £200- ho was made a manager, there is a story that when Bis- choffsheim offered him a salary of £500 a year Casset quickly repiled: "You mean £6,000" and

£5,000 it was.

Alone, still young, and rapid- ly developing the acquisitive

With grim concentration he zet out to acquire for his daughter the only substitue within his means for the care and affection there was now no mother to lavish on her.

fury which was to sustain the Rich man's pleasure amassing of his buge fortune, Ernest Cussel devo.ed himself

single-mindedly to the affairs of AT first the Midas touch still

A Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt. Acluded him. But the pottern And to the personal contacts of his far-sighted and com- and Individual enterprises which prehensive manovrings soc wore to make him one of the came to be appreciated by his outslanding figures of the intivals in the City of London and ternational Anuncial world. by his contacte abroad.

At the age of 32 he toolt an

He gradually extended his aflet ut No. 21 Old Bread operations, and, in 1890, ren Gireet, where a small place bore dered considerable assistanco tu the name painted in white "E. the Bank of England when the Cassel, First Floor." This re- finances of the Argentine col- mained his only shop window lapsed. until long after he became a mului-millionaire.

THO small International

By this time he had made

his first million, and, as hi

fraternity of which he became intercets expanded, his income perhaps the leading member increased by geometrical pro-

gression. wero all men with backgroumda

similar

10 i owTI, people For some time ho had been whom he approached in the living in a handsome residence; course of hls" extensive travels. ʻat 46. Groevenor Square, - tu

сам

at 10

his new position Court giving fresh impetus the scope and magnitude of his enterprises, Cassel entered into the dozen truly expansive years of his career.

It became marked by social splendour and munificence.

His art collection grew, his hospitality reached the point of whole Nile floulles and hiring ocean liners to accommodate his gucats, bequests proportions.

and his charitable astronomic reached

Wa

Its

This was the way a rich man was expected to behave, and in The Prince, ostentatiously, conforming he sought to outdo almost aggressively,

contemporaries. His was any his

at first

wealth. generation

time thing but. He was entirely home on the racecourse, at the accumulation allowed no casina and theatre, and in the for the development of interest

of company of people wit, in the arts nor of a true sense of the obligations of wealth. His charm and beauty.

Yet more than the attraction declining years were

to

show

of opposites must be sought how barren can be the possession

association In the long

which of several million pounds.

Queen's Road, C.

Tel. 25563.

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