Frittering Away The Family Fortune

Inheriting great wealth can prove to be more than a mixed blessing as we have seen before .....

Henry Cyril Paget, Fifth Marquis of Anglesey

For instance at just aged 23, Henry Cyril Paget (1875-1905) - nicknamed 'Toppy', became Fifth Marquis of Anglesey, and inherited an estate providing an annual income of £110,000 (equivalent to £13 million per year in 2023). The estate of about 30,000 acres, may have been worth £200 million at today's values.

By age 27, it was all spent up, and aged just 29 he died from complications of tuberculosis in Monte Carlo, having been declared bankrupt with debts of £544,000 (£60 million in 2023). He was very likely a virgin, despite being married to his cousin Lillian Chetwynd, who eventually (some reports are after just 6 weeks) had requested that the marriage be annulled on the grounds of non consummation (the annulment was later withdrawn at the request of Lady Anglesey - though they remained estranged) ... he apparently liked to dress her up in elaborate costumes, or pose her naked but covered in jewels, but otherwise left her body pristine. 

 

It was probably unlikely that Paget was a practising homosexual, mainly because the climate of the times was distinctly antagonistic towards homosexual men (Oscar Wilde was imprisoned around this time) .... his nearly ex-wife later told the press "Henry is a classic narcissist. The only person he would make love to is himself."

So how did he lose all his vast fortune? Well, he almost exclusively wore elaborate silks and rich gems, spent £3,000-a-year on underwear (£160,000 in today's values, or £3,000 pw), and disliking the smell of car exhaust, he had one of his cars modified to spray perfume from the exhaust wherever it drove .... so you get the idea, but his principal expenditure was on large parties, and theatrical productions in the grounds of his stately home.

He actually poached actors from one of the best touring companies in England, by paying the actors three to four times their normal salaries to perform, with himself always in the leading roles. He would of course require numerous costume changes be included in the performances, which would inevitably finale with him performing his 'butterfly dance'. In fact he was dubbed "the dancing marquess" in the press, for his habit of performing "sinuous, sexy, snake-like dances," and for his trademark butterfly dancing (inspired by a Loie Fuller dance routine), where a voluminous robe of transparent white silk would be waved like wings.

He was such an embarrassment to his family as their 'black sheep,' that following his death, they burned every trace of his existence, and all his papers. However as one commenter pointed out .... he effectively redistributed much of his family's historically hoarded wealth to countless labourers, performers, tailors, architects, jewellers, gem dealers, silk makers, and various other merchants. So not all a waste of money then .....

 

Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale

 

But in fact he wasn't alone .... the 'Yellow Earl' was his near contemporary, and cut from the same spendthrift cloth. Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale (1857 - 1944), inherited a vast fortune from his father's Cumberland coal mines, and also 75,000 acres of land. He also had inherited residences at Lowther Castle, at Whitehaven Castle, Barleythorpe and Carlton House Terrace, London. This estate was in trust, but would have offered an income or around £250,000 pa (equivalent to approx £28 million per year in 2023). 

 

His great wealth made him a friend to the great and the good .... for instance in August 1895 the German Emperor Wilhelm II visited Lowther Castle for some grouse shooting, while the Kings of Italy and Portugal also came to stay, and the German Kaiser a second time in 1902.

 

He had some noteworthy achievements (unlike perhaps Henry Cyril Paget). He formed his own pals battalion, the Lonsdales (11th Battalion, Border Regiment) in WWI, and as an animal lover, helped found the Our Dumb Friends League (now The Blue Cross). He was a founder and first president of the Automobile Association (AA) which adopted his livery of yellow (which he took from his family crest, which featured yellow on the shield, and gave him his nickname). And of course he helped legalise the sport of boxing in Britain (along with his friend The Marquess of Queensberry, who set down the Queenberry Rules for the sport), via The National Sporting Club, and establishing the Lonsdale belt as the prize for British Boxing champions.  

But he was a real spendthrift, for instance he spent £3,000-a-year on cigars (£160,000 in today's values, or £3,000 pw), and when he travelled by train he would book a whole train carriage just for his 10 dogs. Such was the level of his spending, that he was forced to sell the majority of his inherited properties. In 1921 Whitehaven Castle was sold, and in 1926 Barleythorpe. The same year the west Cumberland coal mines closed (which had initially provided much of the family wealth). 

 

In 1935 he was even forced to move from Lowther Castle to a much smaller accommodation, simply because he could no longer afford to live there. He actually threw the keys to the trustees (who by the way, must hold some responsibility for allowing his reckless spending), and told them that it was now their problem.

 

He had in point of fact financially wrecked the vast estate that he had inherited, and his heir had to sell the vast majority of the remaining contents of the castles, in what became the largest country house estate sale of the 20th century in the UK.

So two birds of a feather .....