Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, British billionaire property developer, Died at 64

  Business

Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, was born on December 22, 1951, in Northern Ireland and died on August 9, 2016.

He was a British landowner, businessman, philanthropist, Territorial Army general and hereditary peer.

He was the son of Robert George Grosvenor, 5th Duke of Westminster and Viola Grosvenor.

Gerald was Chairman of the property company Grosvenor Group.

He relocated from an island in the middle of Lough Erne to be educated at Sunningdale and Harrow boarding schools in the south of England.

Following a troubled education he left school with two O-levels.

Grosvenor joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and served in the Territorial Army, where he was promoted to major-general in 2004.

Through the Grosvenor Estates, the business he inherited along with the dukedom in 1979, the Duke was the richest property developer in the United Kingdom and one of the country’s largest landowners, with property in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton and Cheshire, including the family’s country seat of Eaton Hall, as well as 300 acres (0.47 sq mi) of Mayfair and Belgravia in Central London.

His business also has interests in other parts of Europe.

Reported by the Sunday Times Rich List 2016, the Duke was worth £9.35 billion (c. US$13 billion), placing him sixth in the list and making him the third-richest British citizen.

Natalia Ayesha Phillips was his wife, the daughter of Lt-Col. Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips and his wife Georgina Wernher, in 1978.

Natalia Ayesha, his wife is a direct descendant of the Russian poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin and therefore of his African ancestor Abram Gannibal as well as of King George II.

During 1998, the Duke suffered a nervous breakdown and depression, citing the overwhelming pressures of business and public life.

He died at Royal Preston Hospital in Preston, Lancashire, after suffering a heart attack at his Abbeystead estate.

Gerald Grosvenor passed away at 68 years old.