A gift for making and spending money
James Lees-Milne
GRAND DUKES AND DIAMONDS: THE WERNHERS OF LUTON HOO by Raleigh Trevelyan Seeker ci Warburg, £20, pp.356
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In a foreword to this rather lengthy book the Duke of Edinburgh opines that the triumphs and disasters of Sir Julius and Sir Harold Wernher, father and son, two par- ticularly able and enterprising men, would have made an interesting history in any epoch, but the cataclysmic scenario in Which they lived gives it a special fascina- tion.
The royal imprimatur may suggest that Grand Dukes and Diamonds has been com- missioned by the Wernher family — which IS partly true — and is therefore partisan which it is not. The author has not glossed over faults and failings of the two .,ehief participants. On the contrary, Raleigh I revelyan is remarkably detached, and in dealing with recently dead members of the family, notably the Wernher wives, surpris- ingly outspoken. Of Julius and Harold, the first was the nobler. He was a man of extraordinary Uprightness. He was born in Hesse- Darmstadt in 1850 of German parents who were not Jews but Lutherans. Determined, as a Youth, upon a business career, he went to Paris where he was obliged to serve in the Army of Occupation throughout the :Franco-Prussian War. Devoid of chauvinis- tic feelings and with an aptitude for languages, he got a job with a French diamond merchant, Jules Porges, based in Lo. radon. At the age of 21 he represented Ills employer in the Transvaal. By sheer Persistence, hard work and readiness to rough it, within six years he held a key Position in the London Diamond Syndicate. The picture of Julius which revelyan presents is of a young man almost too good to be true, Indeed, amongst the competing riff-raff of the Randlords he steered a straight course which led to almost incalculable wealth. In I.877 he linked up with another paragon of v Irtue in the same line of business, only gold as well as diamonds, namely Alfred Pelt, described by W.T. Stead as having something Christ-like' about him. By 1890 Jules Porges & Co. was reconstituted as Wernher, Beit (Julius modestly protesting that he was known only as the Christian name of the other). Before establishing himself in England for good and assuming British nationality Julius married Alice (`Birdie') Mankiewich, certainly of Polish and probably of Jewish extraction. She became a famous London hostess, better known as Lady Ludlow en deitherne nixes, who entertained at Bath House, Piccadilly on a prodigious scale.
It is astonishing how Sir Julius (he was made a baronet by King Edward VII, who bestowed the same honour upon eight sub- sequent Randlords) found opportunity in the Kimberley backwaters to be extremely well read and a discerning connoisseur of the arts. At Luton Hoo, the palatial house in Bedfordshire which he acquired and got the architects of the Ritz Hotel totally to re-edify, he amassed paintings, bronzes, majolica and ivories second to none in private collections.
But Sir Julius' life was not a bed of roses. He was reviled for implication in the Jame- son Raid, for bringing about the Boer War, for grinding the faces of the poor Blacks. On the contrary, he was strongly against the Raid and the war which harmed his businesses. He employed thousands of Blacks who flocked to the Rand, and left legacies to charities which would have put Maecenas and the late Paul Getty to shame. His marriage to an ambitious socialite was so-so. Birdie complained that he was no ardent lover (one asks oneself did he have the time to spare?) and his eldest son Derrick turned out a crook, liar, swindler and most probably a burglar. He brought his worthy father in sorrow to a premature grave.
Harold was likewise gifted with outstand- ing business acumen, becoming chairman of numerous commercial ventures as well as charities, Like Julius, he found time to read and add to the Luton Hoe works of art. But unlike his reclusive and workaholic father he was an enjoyer. His tastes were patrician — deer forests, polo ponies and star racehorses. He moved in high social and royal circles before marrying a daugh- ter of the Grand Duke Michael who, having owned estates larger than Holland, was reduced by the Russian revolution to living on his son-in-law. In the Grand Ducal extremity Lady Zia may have been directed to find a rich husband. Grander if that were possible than her cousins on the tottering thrones of Europe she dressed superbly and lived for horses. To men notwithstanding, she was very attractive (King George of the Hellenes, 'Georgie Greece', was in love with her all his life) and rather formidable with women. Chaste, clever and efficient, she was given to child- ish pranks and jealousies. Sir Harold had his downs as well as his ups. Brave as a lion, he had haunting experiences in the first world war as well as losing his young brother Alex to whom he was devoted. Major-General in the second world war, he lost his only son, another
Alex, who was the apple of both his par- ents' eyes. Harold's greatest moment came in 1944 when Mountbatten appointed him to carry out the `Mulberry' project of artifi- cial harbours to enable Allied troops to land in Normandy. His task was crowned by success, for which he received no honour, barely recognition, from his con- temporaries and positive misrepresentation from historians.
The author's main purpose in beginning this book was to put right Sir Harold's role in the Normandy invasion. This he seems to have done convincingly. He has also made out a very favourable case for Sir Julius. To justify the motives of monied men in the eyes of the poor majority is always an uphill task. To students of 'the cataclysmic scenario', part one (the making of the Wernher fortune) may prove a more rewarding contribution than part two (the spending of it). Raleigh Trevelyan is an experienced and polished writer who holds the reader's attention throughout. The index is first rate.
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