I have done this site especially for Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
in order to visit crazybillionaire.org Military career
After leaving Harrow School with a single O-level, the Duke failed the entrance examination to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst . [ 1 ] The Duke joined the Territorial Army in 1970 as a trooper .
Later in 1973 the Duke attended Sandhurst and subsequently commanded the(The Cheshire Yeomanry) Squadron, founded by his ancestors, and the The Queen's Own Yeomanry . He was also appointed the Honorary Colonel of several Regiments, including the 7th Regt. Army Air Corps , the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry , the Queen's Own Yeomanry, Northumbria Universities Officer Training Corps, Colonel in Chief of the Canadian Royal Westminster Regiment and Colonel Commandant Yeomanry .
In 2004 he was appointed to the new post of Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Reserves and Cadets) with promotion to the rank of Major General . He was the first reservist holding such rank since the 1930s, but it was said that he 'privately never kidded himself that he would have achieved such seniority but for his wealth and social status'. [ 1 ]
In March 2007, having served in the Ministry of Defence for four years he handed over the responsibility of 50,000 Reservists and 138,000 Cadets to Major General Simon Lalor . The Duke is now engaged in the Reserve Review in the same Rank. He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) for his military service in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
Personal life
As a child the Duke lived on an island in the middle of Loch Erne. His early education was in Ulster and then he went to Sunningdale School and then on to Harrow.
The Duke married Natalia Ayesha Phillips , the daughter of Lt.-Col. Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips and his wife Georgina Wernher, in 1978. The Duchess is a direct descendant of the Russian poet Alexander S. Pushkin , and therefore of his ancestor Ibrahim Hannibal . The Duchess' older sister is Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn , wife of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn .
Pity poor Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, otherwise known as the sixth Duke of Westminster. He had the foresight to have as a forebear one Thomas Grosvenor who in 1677, trying to recoup losses incurred by choosing the wrong side in the civil war, married 12-year-old Mary Davies. Her dowry was a water-logged cabbage farm called Ebury Manor. To cut the story short: the family held onto the farm, London grew around it.
Today the Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor is one of the two or three richest people in Britain, owning 300 acres in posh Mayfair and Belgravia that could fetch a cool $5 billion. The plot contains, among other things, Claridge's, the Connaught Hotel, the United States Embassy, Belgrave Square and the shops and homes of about 4,000 leaseholding tenants, many of whom live in dark brick townhouses trimmed with cream-colored wood and lined up as neat as chocolates in Thorntons' window. Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
The 41-year-old Duke's position has been summed up by an anecdote, perhaps apocryphal. Speaking at a charity dinner, he exhorted his listeners to empathize with "those less fortunate than ourselves," at which point a guest at one table was heard to mutter: "Gerald, everyone's less fortunate than yourself."
But now all that might very well change, at least somewhat. Under a Jacobin piece of legislation masquerading under the innocuous title of the housing and urban development bill, wealthy landowners in England and Wales could be forced to sell apartments and high-priced houses to people who occupy them under long-term purchased leases. The bill, which could affect as many as 750,000 households, would effectively spell the end of the peculiarly British leasehold system in which tenants pay substantial sums for the right to occupy a property for a certain time, generally 99 years. At the end the property, including improvements made by the tenant, reverts to the landlord, or freeholder. Among other anomalies, the system means that the leaseholder's investment loses value drastically as the lease wears on -- a wasting asset if there ever was one. A Traitor to His Class Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
The system of long leasehold tenure, with roots in the 17th century when the crown showered its favored few with tracts of land, took hold as the norm in mid-Victorian London. Those fighting to overturn it, like Joan South, who founded the Leasehold Enfranchisement Association two years ago, argue that it is archaic and discredited and responsible for poor maintenance and the breaking up of neighborhoods. As leases approach the expiration date, lease-holders panic and sell for whatever they can get. "We got fed up seeing people being virtually forced out of their homes and moving away," she said. "That was the glory of London -- its residential heart." Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
On the other side, the argument is largely the sanctity of contracts and the inviolability of private property."With this as a precedent," asked Jane Sanders, marketing and communications director for the Grosvenor Estate, "what's to stop another government from interfering in other ways -- say, by making people who bought shares in private companies give them to the government?"
The bill is the extension of a "right to buy" principle embodied in a 1967 law, the Leasehold Reform Act, which contributed to a rise of 13 percent in the number of owner-occupiers between 1979 and 1990. But that law excluded apartments and certain very expensive houses, an omission this bill seeks to rectify. It is riddled with provisions and qualifications: leaseholders must buy the freehold of the apartments collectively; their leases must be 21 years or longer when granted, and they must meet a "low rent" test to ensure that they are not simply renters. The sale price is set by a complicated mechanism that both sides object to -- one says it's too low, the other too high. Crown lands are exempt. Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
Still, it represents a revolution of sorts. And for the scions of the landed gentry, like 79-year-old Lord Cadogan, the possessor of 100 acres in Chelsea worth $600 million, or 59-year-old Lord Portman, whose 150 acres around Marylebone could go for about the same, the unkindest cut is that the bill comes not from Marxist- mumbling Laborites but from their own Tory party, the bastion of property-owning aristocrats. The person pushing the bill is none other than Sir George Young, a gawky housing minister who fights for the poor and homeless in that traitor-to-his-class spirit and is lately lampooned by The Spectator as "the Che Guevara of the leaseholders."
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References
- ^ a b c " Daily Mail, 12th February 2007 ". Retrieved on 2007 - 06-16 .
- ^ The Daily Telegraph, 6.10. 2007 Paris revolts against Duke of Westminster Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
- ^ "Disgraced New York governor forced to quit after spending $80,000 on call girls over six years" Daily Mail . 12 March 2008 . (17:40 GMT). Accessed 12 March 2008 .
- ^ " Duke Of Westminster: Prostitution Client, Allegedly, Of Emperors Club VIP ". www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved on 2008 - 03-17 .
- ^ " England's Dreaming: Richest Man in Britain Threatens Every Paper in the Nation ". gawker.com. Retrieved on 2008 - 03-17 .
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