British ‘Tycoons

Until recently British life was pervaded by giant characters, whom Americans would call tycoons but who on examination would be found to be not only wealthier and more powerful, but vastly more popular than their American parallels. Such would be the late Lord Lonsdale, the late Aga Khan and the late Lord Derby. All three rose to superpopularity as sportsmen or racehorse owners. But each was utterly distinct from any other human. Incidentally, Lord Derby once told me that the Aga Khan was his bête noire on the Turf: in fact he had tried to keep him out of the Jockey Club as his wealth had harmed the great British sport.

Lord Derby, descended from Shakespearean scenes of history, has been indiscreetly, but of course the more readably, recorded by Randolph Churchill (Lord Derby, Putnam, $7.50). As the head of the Stanleys, a Derby could do no ill. We are told in a frank moment that Uncle Henry, the Fifteenth Earl, was expelled from Eton “supposedly for kleptomania”! This information would ruin most cadets but this noble Earl then tried Rugby School and Cambridge and at the age of twenty-eight was tried by Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, for the Cabinet!

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Sir Shane Leslie

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Until recently British life was pervaded by giant characters, whom Americans would call tycoons but who on examination would be found to be not only wealthier and more powerful, but vastly more popular than their American parallels. Such would be the late Lord Lonsdale, the late Aga Khan and the late Lord Derby. All three rose to superpopularity as sportsmen or racehorse owners. But each was utterly distinct from any other human. Incidentally, Lord Derby once told me that the Aga Khan was his bête noire on the Turf: in fact he had tried to keep him out of the Jockey Club as his wealth had harmed the great British sport.

Lord Derby, descended from Shakespearean scenes of history, has been indiscreetly, but of course the more readably, recorded by Randolph Churchill (Lord Derby, Putnam, $7.50). As the head of the Stanleys, a Derby could do no ill. We are told in a frank moment that Uncle Henry, the Fifteenth Earl, was expelled from Eton “supposedly for kleptomania”! This information would ruin most cadets but this noble Earl then tried Rugby School and Cambridge and at the age of twenty-eight was tried by Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, for the Cabinet!