2nd Duke of Westminster

Early life

Hugh was the son of Victor Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor (1853–1884), the predeceased son of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, and Lady Sibell Lumley (1855–1929), daughter of Richard Lumley, 9th Earl of Scarbrough. His mother later remarried the politician George Wyndham. After completing his education at Eton, he briefly attended a French boarding school run by Count de Mauny at the age of nineteen. There were rumors suggesting that the count had made inappropriate advances toward some of his pupils. Grosvenor was known within family circles as "Bendor", which was also the name of the racehorse Bend Or, owned by his grandfather. Bend Or won The Derby in 1880, the year following Grosvenor's birth. The name is a reference to the ancient lost armorials of the family: Azure, a bend or, which were awarded to the Scrope family in the famous case of 1389 heard before the Court of Chivalry, known as Scrope v Grosvenor. His wife Loelia wrote in her memoirs:

Of course everybody, even his parents and sisters, would normally have addressed the baby as "Belgrave" so they may have thought that any nickname was preferable. At all events it stuck, and my husband's friends never called him anything but "Bendor" or "Benny".

Personal life

The Duke was married four times and was divorced thrice.

He married Constance Edwina ("Shelagh") Cornwallis-West (1876–1970), a distant cousin, on 16 February 1901. In 1909, when the couple's only son died in the absence of his mother, the Duke accused his wife of neglecting the child while dallying with other men. By 1913, the couple were living apart, and both of them were consorting with lovers. Their divorce was finalized on 19 December 1919, with the Duke solely accepting blame for adultery and paying his wife an annual settlement of £13,000 (equivalent to £580,360 in 2025), the largest in British legal history to that date. Less than one month after the divorce, the Duchess married a much younger man who was an employee of the Duke. The divorced couple maintained cordiality lifelong, even co-hosting debutante balls for their daughters; neither of them had children by their subsequent marriages. They had three children together: Lady Ursula Mary Olivia Grosvenor (21 February 1902 – 1978) Edward George Hugh Grosvenor, Earl Grosvenor (1904–1909), who died aged 4, after an operation for appendicitis. Lady Mary Constance Grosvenor (27 June 1910 – 2000). His second marriage was held on 26 November 1920, when the Duke became the second husband of Violet Mary Nelson (1891–1983). They had no children together and were divorced in 1926. His third wife was Loelia Mary Ponsonby (1902–1993), whom he married on 20 February 1930. The couple were unable to have children and divorced in 1947 after several years of separation. His fourth wife was Anne (Nancy) Winifred Sullivan (1915–2003), whom he married on 7 February 1947. They had no children, and she outlived him by fifty years. Apart from his four marriages, the Duke had multiple love affairs and was known to make presents to his lover of the moment. After his dalliance with Coco Chanel, he was fascinated by the Brazilian Aimée de Heeren, who was not interested in marrying him, but to whom he gave significant jewelry, once part of the French Crown Jewels.

The Duke died of coronary thrombosis at Loch More Lodge on his Scottish estate in Sutherland in July 1953, aged 74. He was buried in the churchyard of Eccleston Church near Eaton Hall, Cheshire following his death. His large estate attracted then-record death duties of £18,000,000, which took between July 1953 and August 1964 to pay off to the Inland Revenue. He was survived by two daughters. His titles and the entailed Westminster estate passed to his cousin, William Grosvenor, and thence to the two sons of his youngest half-uncle Lord Hugh Grosvenor (killed in action in 1914). The title passed in 2016 to Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster.