Britains 600 aristocratic families have doubled their wealth in the last decade
Tony Gosling
tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Sun Jul 21 01:23:18 BST 2019
Britains 600 aristocratic families have doubled
their wealth in the last decade and are as wealthy as at the height of Empire
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/aristocrat-uk-britain-families-double-wealth-empire-exclusive-study/
Exclusive: hereditary titles are now worth
average of at least £16m, we can reveal
Emacs!
Britains aristocrats have enjoyed a dramatic
surge in their wealth in the last 30 years and
have seen their riches double in the last decade.
A hereditary title is now worth an average of
more than £16m nearly twice the value it stood
at prior to the 2007 financial crisis, i can reveal.
Their fortunes contrast starkly with the decade
experienced by the vast majority of Britons where
overall productivity has stagnated and
inflation-adjusted wages remain stuck at 2005
levels. Since the Thatcher era, the value of a
hereditary title has also increased four-fold.
The pioneering research, based on data from the
wills of nearly 2,000 title holders, demolishes
the widespread image of a bumbling British
aristocracy in genteel decline by showing that
many of its present day members are canny investors.
Victorian ancestors
On average, Britains 600 or so aristocratic
families are now as wealthy as their Victorian
forebears at the height of Britains imperial expansion.
The ten largest aristocratic personal fortunes
left in the last decade add up to £1.06bn when
adjusted to reflect current purchasing power.
At the head of the league of aristocratic wealth
stands the high-profile figure of Hugh Grosvenor,
7th Duke of Westminster, who will eventually
inherit the personal fortune worth some £659m in
2019 prices left by his father following his death in 2016.
The 28-year-olds total family wealth, held in
separate trust funds, is put at some £9bn.
The aristocracy prospered under the era of financial deregulation
But the standings also include lesser known
figures, including the family of John Vane, the
11th Baron Barnard, who presided over a
60,000-acre Northumberland estate and left £94m
in 2016; and the 8th Earl Bathurst.
The Earl is perhaps best remembered for once
giving chase to a car breaking rules for driving
on the familys Gloucestershire estate. It was
only when he was himself intercepted by a vehicle
containing plainclothes police that the peer, who
left £54m in 2011, realised he was pursuing a
youthful Prince William. It was only when he was
himself intercepted by a vehicle containing
plainclothes police that the peer, who left £54m
in 2011, realised he was pursuing a youthful Prince William.
The study by two academics at London South Bank
University, which involved consulting more than a
million wills, casts rare light on the usually
closely-guarded secret of the finances of the
nations dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and
barons by showing that the minimum value of one
of these titles now stands on average at £16.1m.
The same figure, adjusted to reflect current
purchasing power, stood at £4.2m between 1978 and 1987.
The four-fold increase in the figure suggests
that the aristocracy has prospered spectacularly
under the era of financial deregulation and
economic liberalisation ushered in by Margaret
Thatcher when she came to power in 1979.
The figures, based on the settled estates or
probates of 1,706 members of the nobility dating
back to 1858, also only tell part of the story of
aristocratic wealth by showing the minimal
personal wealth of title holders. The total
fortune of the often secretive elite is likely to
be far higher because in many cases other family
wealth including land, property and assets such
as art collections or investment portfolios is
held in separate trusts which are not open to scrutiny.
They are people of the world
Dr Matthew Bond, senior lecturer in sociology at
LSBU, who compiled the data with colleague Dr
Julien Morton, told i: There is a lot of work
from the field of history and literature that
essentially argues that aristocrats were a bit
useless, that they concentrated on the values of
nobility and duty and money didnt matter so much.
We would argue that isnt so much the case. The
fact that their wealth has been so resilient
would seem to indicate that they are people of
the world rather than dwindling standard bearers of ancient values.
The figures represent a sharp recovery in the
fortunes of the nobility, which went into
dramatic decline during the Second World War and
the post-war consensus, which brought in more
progressive taxation and the welfare state. From
a pre-war high of £23m, average fortunes fell to
£4.9m by 1967 before rocketing again by the 1980s.
Financial crisis
The data suggests that Britains wealthiest
aristocrats have weathered the economic problems
caused by the 2008 financial crisis, apparently
using existing assets to take advantage of low
interest rates to buy up stocks and shares and
other investments which have rocketed in value.
In the decade to 2007, the average wealth of the
nobility stood at £8.9m suggesting it has nearly doubled in the decade since.
Dr Morton said: The asset-owning super-rich to
the extent that they include the aristocracy
would appear to have benefited during the period
after the financial crisis from factors such as
quantitative easing which allowed them to use
those assets to secure mortgages and debts to buy further assets.
The data underlines the entrenched nature
aristocratic wealth and the tight-knit social
circles in which many title holders move.
Eton and Harrow
Of the ten largest probates between 2008 and
2018, seven of the deceased attended Eton or
Harrow, with the remaining three also attending
major public schools. Six of the ten went to
either Oxford or Cambridge universities.
Dukes, which represent the highest and often
oldest rank of the aristocracy, are also the
wealthiest, leaving an average inflation-adjusted fortune of £48m since 1958.
The next echelons of marquesses, earls and
viscounts were worth £14.5m and £11.2m, while the
far more numerous barons (totalling more than 800
title holders, including the father of former
Chancellor George Osborne) were worth on average £9.3m.
Privileged position
Critics of the aristocracy said the findings
strengthened the argument that the nobility have
succeeded in shoring up a privileged position in British society.
Labour MP Chris Bryant, whose book on the
nobility A Critical History of the British
Aristocracy was published in 2017, told i: For
more than a century, the landed aristocracy have
been moaning about their terrible impoverishment.
Ostentatiously sitting in dilapidated drawing
rooms with buckets and pails catching drips from
the beautiful but bowed stucco ceiling, they have extended the begging bowl.
Yet the last century has seen many do remarkably
well. The end result is that the great old
landed, crested and hallmarked families of the
United Kingdom are still in possession of most of
the land and a large part of the wealth of the nation.
Financial brink
The LSBU data suggests that aristocratic families
have an enduring ability to bounce back from the financial brink.
When the 17th Earl of Devon died in 1998, he left
just £121,000 and forced his successors to seek
fresh sources of income, including opening the
family seat, Powderham Castle, as a heritage site.
By the time of the death in 2015 of the 18th
earl, Hugh Courtenay, he left a legacy of £47.5m.
Dr Bond said: There are always families that
dont do well but there is also an interesting
degree of resilience in the aristocracy. When you
do have a disaster or a massive drop in wealth,
quite often there seems to be recovery. Very
often weve noticed that families in possession
of a title can have periods where their personal
wealth goes down considerably but then it rebounds within a generation or two.
Supporting and shaping communities
The study takes no view on the societal role of
the nobility, whose supporters argue that they
play a valuable role in supporting and shaping
rural communities through large estates and
farming businesses. Separate research last year
confirmed that just under a third of all land in
England and Wales is owned by members of the aristocracy.
The authors of the latest research said further
work is needed to establish the extent of the
influence of the aristocracy now that the veil
over their fortunes has been partially lifted.
Dr Morton said: The view of the aristocracy has
long been clouded by assumptions and prejudices.
It may well be the case that having a rich and
vital aristocracy is good for the country. We are
interested in understanding this group as objectively and deeply as possible.
The top ten biggest probates* of the last decade (2008-2018)
:: Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster d.2016
Educated: Harrow
Probate £659m
Heir: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster
:: Harry John Neville Vane, 11th Baron Barnard d.2016
Educated: Eton and University of Durham
Probate £94.5m
Heir: Henry Vane, 12th Baron Barnard
:: Hugh Denis Charles FitzRoy, 11th Duke of Grafton d.2011
Educated: Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Probate £71m
Heir: Henry FitzRoy, 12th Duke of Grafton
:: Henry Allen John Bathurst, 8th Earl Bathurst d.2011
Educated: Eton and Christchurch, Oxford
Probate £54.5m
Heir: Allen Christopher Bertram, 9th Earl Bathurst
:: Hugh Rupert Courtenay, Earl of Devon d.2015
Educated: Winchester and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Probate £47.5m
Heir: Charles Peregrine Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon
:: John Marlborough, Duke of Marlborough d.2014
Educated: Eton
Probate £32m
Heir: Jamie Marlborough, 12th Duke of Marlborough
:: Robin Henry Charles Neville, 10th Baron Braybrooke d.2017
Educated: Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Probate £30.8m
Heir: Richard Neville, 11th Baron Braybrooke
:: Edward Douglas Coke, 7th Earl of Leicester d.2015
Educated: Winchester and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Probate: £30.6m
Heir: Thomas Coke, 8th Earl of Leicester
:: Charles James FitzRoy, 6th Baron Southampton d.2015
Educated: Stowe
Probate £25.4m
Heir: Edward Charles FitzRoy
:: Milo Cripps, 4th Baron Parmoor d.2008
Educated Ampleforth and Corpus Christi, Oxford
Probate £17.4m
Heir: Seddon Cripps, 5th Parmoor
* Probate is the value of the estate of the
deceased net of debt but not net of tax, ie the
total sum inherited will be less depending on the
amount of tax paid. Figures are adjusted for
purchasing power at 2019 prices to allow comparison.
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'From South America, where payment must be made with subtlety, the
Bormann organization has made a substantial contribution. It has
drawn many of the brightest Jewish businessmen into a participatory
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community with a certain share of his profits earmarked as always for
his venture capital benefactors. This has taken place in many other
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operate in the contemporary commercial world, in contrast to the
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So much emphasis is placed on select Jewish participation in Bormann
companies that when Adolf Eichmann was seized and taken to Tel Aviv
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and cut off the flow of Jewish money to Israel. It never happened
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these Jewish leaders. He is residing in an Argentinian safe haven,
protected by the most efficient German infrastructure in history as
well as by all those whose prosperity depends on his well-being.'
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