I was also unaware that Alfred had a propensity to drink, and that he had a second family. I found it somewhat sad that, after leaving to stay with his second family, Mary had very little contact with Alfred until he finally passed away and that it was the many other members of the Dunhill clan that kept the concern in operation.
I found this somewhere and kept it...
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"Copyright 1998 Associated Newspapers Ltd. DAILY MAIL (London) May 2, 1998
SECTION: Pg. 27
HEADLINE:
Dunhill and the downhill path to attempted murder; A DYNASTY IS
STAINED WITH ITS OWN BLOOD AS HEIR LIES IN HOSPITAL.
BODY:
BUT for one name, the stabbing in an East End pub might have passed
unnoticed by all but regulars and neighbours. The name was Dunhill, and the unsavoury episode was just one more in the dissipated life of the tobacco heir known in the firm as Mr Christopher. Having wasted a fortune, last Monday Christopher John Dunhill almost lost his life as well. What the police want to know is why.
The House They Left Behind is a stump of a pub that stands on a corner in
Limehouse, East London, isolated by Hitler's Luftwaffe and subsequent
redevelopment. By closing time on Monday night there were only eight people in the bar. Six left. Police are now asking them to come forward. The two who remained were landlord Tony Fran, 32, and Mr Dunhill, 43, who appears to have been lodging above the premises while running an oyster stall on the small plaza outside. At around 11.30, three men carrying at least one knife entered. Their intention was to murder both Mr Fran and Mr Dunhill.
They left in a dark-coloured car having failed, but only just. Mr Dunhill had been stabbed 12 times in the head, neck and stomach. Last night he was 'stable' in the Royal London Hospital. 'He's definitely on the mend and should be out soon,' said his brother Jonathan. But why would someone want to kill Christopher? 'I am not prepared to comment on that.' Mr Fran received wounds to his arms and buttocks and was discharged next day. He claims to remember little of the attack.
But this was only a chapter in a colourful family history of disputed wills, bankruptcy, suicide, seduction, tyranny, illegitimacy, alcoholism, drugs
and imprisonment.
The original Alfred Dunhill was born in 1872. His father made and repaired
horse harness. When he retired, Alfred took over, and after various ventures,
opened a tobacco shop in Duke Street, in the heart of London's clubland. In a
brilliant piece of product placement, he sent thousands of pipes, made in his
factory, to the troops in the trenches during World War I. The future was
assured.
YET Alfred was a domestic tyrant. His daughter Mary, whose own daughter
later committed suicide, was to recall his philandering, heavy drinking and
rigid control of his children's lives. In 1929 he moved out to live with a
mistress who had given him a baby.
His brother Herbert, the next chairman, biga-mously married a girl who worked in the lifts at the factory, and set up home with her in Monte Carlo.
Other women followed - the last an Austrian widow known as Auntie Fritzi.
She inherited his multimillion pound fortune and outraged her blood relatives
by adopting her maid, Gabriela Mayer, who became her heir. The Dunhills did not get involved. Control of the firm passed to Herbert'sn nephew Alfred H. Dunhill, then to his nephew Richard, Christopher's father.B Butthe days when every young Dunhill was expected to enter the business att thebottom were over.
Christopher was expelled from Downside at 15, for entertaining a girl in
his room. His brothers Mark and Jonathan, were sent to Ampleforth.
'When you visited their parents' home you were allowed to go into a garage
stuffed full of Dunhill's products and take your pick,' remembers one friend.
'Mark was quite serious but Jonathan was more fun. He had an expensive
electric guitar which he played badly, and when punk finally reached Ampleforth he dyed his blond hair black.' At 21 Christopher inherited $500,000 and blew it on cars and fast living. A marriage, to actress Victoria Bur-goyne, was as brief and unsuccessful as his business ventures, one of which led to a legal battle with the family firm over the right to use the Dunhill name. In 1981 he
was declared bankrupt with debts of $57,000.
The Eighties passed in a blur of drug and alcohol addiction. He boasted of snorting cocaine in Margaret Thatcher's private bathroom and of a 'seven-in-abed' orgy with a Hollywood star.
His sister Susan lent him more than $100,000 to get him back on his feet.
One can only guess how it was spent. By the time police caught him with a
package of cocaine in his flat in St John's Wood in 1986, he seemed at his
lowest ebb. 'Since the end of 1982 I've been dependent on alcohol.
My whole life went down the drain,' he told his trial. 'Unfortunately one
of my problems is spending money too quickly.' HIS father stood by him -
putting up a $200,000 surety and was there to see him sentenced to nine months for supplying cocaine and handling tapestries stolen from auctioneers Christie's.
After Wormwood Scrubs he seemed to have kicked the drugs habit but his
business acumen remained unreliable. A classic car firm, run with Jonathan, failed. They were sued by a finance house and ordered to pay $250,000. In 1995 Christopher Dunhill was declared
bankrupt again, owing $3.5million. Jonathan went on to a more successful
business importing Irish oysters - which he supplied to Christopher - from an
office in South London. So what is left of the Dunhill legacy?
Alfred Dunhill Ltd, the luxury goods company, is now part of the Swiss-controlled Vendome group.
Dunhill cigarettes are in the Rothmans portfolio. Richard Dunhill is 71 and
still works at Alfred Dunhill's Knightsbridge HQ 'but not every day'. Friends say he would like to retire soon and pursue his passions of
gardening and backgammon at his mansion in Buckinghamshire.
His cousin, authoress Anne Dunhill, said: 'I hope that a member of the family will have some stake in the firm after Richard steps down.' It seems
unlikely. Company literature boast of its new management structure and
aggressive marketing team.
'The future looks bright,' they say. It certainly doesn't include Christopher Dunhill, in an active role at least."
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I don't know what's true, lie or exaggerating, but it caught my eye...
Every story has several faces.
