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Herbert Edward Dunhill: Difference between revisions
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After Alfred, tired of family life, (supposedly) ran off with a fisherman's daughter, his brother, Herbert Edward Dunhill, better known to his family as Uncle Bertie, led the empire.<br> | After Alfred, tired of family life, (supposedly) ran off with a fisherman's daughter, his brother, Herbert Edward Dunhill, better known to his family as Uncle Bertie, led the empire.<br> | ||
Here, Mary reports on her book, a bit of her uncle's personality and how he was invited to join the business by his father: | Here, Mary reports on her book, a bit of her uncle's personality and how he was invited to join the business by his father: | ||
[[File:New_Doc_2019-12-12_09.11.23_3.jpg|thumb|right|170px]] | [[File:New_Doc_2019-12-12_09.11.23_3.jpg|thumb|right|170px|Herbert in 1904 - aged twenty-two]] | ||
<blockquote>"One of the visitors who occasionally came to Woodlands was Uncle Herbert or Bertie, as we called him, Father’s youngest brother and his junior by twelve years, who was soon to take an important part in the business. He had been a territorial member of the Artists Rifles but, on account of the tubercular condition that was to afflict him for most of his life, he had been declared unfit for active service. | <blockquote>"One of the visitors who occasionally came to Woodlands was Uncle Herbert or Bertie, as we called him, Father’s youngest brother and his junior by twelve years, who was soon to take an important part in the business. He had been a territorial member of the Artists Rifles but, on account of the tubercular condition that was to afflict him for most of his life, he had been declared unfit for active service. | ||
Uncle Bertie, then about thirty years old, was tall, outstandingly handsome and clean-shaven though he was later to grow a full Imperial beard, reddish in | Uncle Bertie, then about thirty years old, was tall, outstandingly handsome and clean-shaven though he was later to grow a full Imperial beard, reddish in colour. He was so much more extrovert and forthcoming than Father that their blood relationship would have surprised you. On leaving King’s School, Canterbury, Uncle Bertie had lodged with my parents and, on account of the somewhat foppish ways he affected in his youth, from his wide-brimmed hats to his vegetarian diet, and partly because of the sackfuls of postage stamps he kept under his bed, Mother regarded him as a crank. But Uncle Bertie, as he was soon to show, was astonishingly astute, especially in financial matters. Some members of the business were soon to be daunted by the stern glance his pale eyes could give you from behind their gilt-framed spectacles, though I always felt affection for Uncle Bertie. I also looked forward to his visits because they usually meant that I could spend some time with Lilian, his daughter and my cousin, a pretty fair-haired girl, just about as lively as I was. We were almost exactly the same age and the greatest friends. | ||
Before I was born Uncle Bertie had tried his hand with some sort of a shop in New York, returning with Aunt Violet, the fussy little woman he had married, in time to join Father in his early days at Duke Street an arrangement that the problems with creditors had brought to a rapid close. Uncle Bertie had then opened his own tobacconist’s shop in Harrow where he was now living in a semidetached house in Butlers Avenue and where Aunt Violet ran a hat shop. | Before I was born Uncle Bertie had tried his hand with some sort of a shop in New York, returning with Aunt Violet, the fussy little woman he had married, in time to join Father in his early days at Duke Street an arrangement that the problems with creditors had brought to a rapid close. Uncle Bertie had then opened his own tobacconist’s shop in Harrow where he was now living in a semidetached house in Butlers Avenue and where Aunt Violet ran a hat shop. | ||
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<blockquote><q>Two male members of the staff took turns to travel to Merano, their bags stuffed with reports, accounts, proposed salary increases and requests that required his signature before they could be implemented. Every week he sent back bags of memorandums and instructions, no detail being too trivial for his critical eye, even the way stamps should be stuck onto office envelopes and the space that should be left between them if they happened not to be of the same colour. If this reluctance to delegate authority seems petty in a man whose health had now banished him from the country - and we naturally found it extremely frustrating - Uncle Bertie’s methods, as we shall see, ensured that the family continued to exercise a tight control over the London business throughout his lifetime.</q> Dunhill, Mary, Our Family Business (The Bodley Head - Great Britain, 1979).</blockquote> | <blockquote><q>Two male members of the staff took turns to travel to Merano, their bags stuffed with reports, accounts, proposed salary increases and requests that required his signature before they could be implemented. Every week he sent back bags of memorandums and instructions, no detail being too trivial for his critical eye, even the way stamps should be stuck onto office envelopes and the space that should be left between them if they happened not to be of the same colour. If this reluctance to delegate authority seems petty in a man whose health had now banished him from the country - and we naturally found it extremely frustrating - Uncle Bertie’s methods, as we shall see, ensured that the family continued to exercise a tight control over the London business throughout his lifetime.</q> Dunhill, Mary, Our Family Business (The Bodley Head - Great Britain, 1979).</blockquote> | ||
Mr | Mr Richard Dunhill also relate this: "as an example of Herbert’s passionate attention to detail, I reproduce the following memorandum, dated 16 September 1945, from Herbert Dunhill to the chairman, [https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Alfred_Henry_Dunhill Alfred H. Dunhill.] It goes without saying that Herbert was a philatelist par excellence:" | ||
<blockquote>[[File:Aspas-copy.png|40px]]'''Re:''' Stamping of Letters Since I last wrote about the stamping of our overseas letters, the carelessness in stamping has not however lessened. It has become worse and more consistently bad. My rules in past years were that stamps must be level and at least a quarter-inch from the edge, the same distance top and sides. If the stamps were of different colours they should have a slight space between them; if the same they should be placed so that they appear to be from one sheet, even if really not. Care should be taken, if several stamps are used, to choose stamps of colours that look pleasant when placed together. Please have my methods carried out in the future.[[File:Aspas.png|40px]] Herbert E. Dunhill.</blockquote> | <blockquote>[[File:Aspas-copy.png|40px]]'''Re:''' Stamping of Letters Since I last wrote about the stamping of our overseas letters, the carelessness in stamping has not however lessened. It has become worse and more consistently bad. My rules in past years were that stamps must be level and at least a quarter-inch from the edge, the same distance top and sides. If the stamps were of different colours they should have a slight space between them; if the same they should be placed so that they appear to be from one sheet, even if really not. Care should be taken, if several stamps are used, to choose stamps of colours that look pleasant when placed together. Please have my methods carried out in the future.[[File:Aspas.png|40px]] Herbert E. Dunhill.</blockquote> | ||
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His generosity as a host was usually boundless yet, in contrast, there were sudden moments of stinginess, possibly to impress Zee with the notions of thrift that he and Father had had dinned into them in their youth. There were occasions when he persuaded the children to drink citronade rather than pay an extra franc for the orange juice they preferred. Once he expressed shocked amazement because, still in the days of sweet rationing, I had paid £2 for chocolates to take home as presents. Nor have I any doubt that his health rapidly deteriorated in 1950 after he had waited in the rain for a ’bus rather than pay a taxi fare.</q> Dunhill, Mary, Our Family Business (The Bodley Head - Great Britain, 1979) p-107.</blockquote> | His generosity as a host was usually boundless yet, in contrast, there were sudden moments of stinginess, possibly to impress Zee with the notions of thrift that he and Father had had dinned into them in their youth. There were occasions when he persuaded the children to drink citronade rather than pay an extra franc for the orange juice they preferred. Once he expressed shocked amazement because, still in the days of sweet rationing, I had paid £2 for chocolates to take home as presents. Nor have I any doubt that his health rapidly deteriorated in 1950 after he had waited in the rain for a ’bus rather than pay a taxi fare.</q> Dunhill, Mary, Our Family Business (The Bodley Head - Great Britain, 1979) p-107.</blockquote> | ||
Balfour reported that Herbert died suddenly on 8 November 1950 not from the tuberculosis which had plagued him for so long, but from a brain | Balfour reported that Herbert died suddenly on 8 November 1950 not from the tuberculosis which had plagued him for so long, but from a brain haemorrhage. But according to Mary's, it wasn't that sudden - he passed away one year after the cerebral haemorrhage. A month later his company’s balance-sheet total passed the £1 million mark for the first time. | ||
<blockquote><q>We then had to persuade a Dr | <blockquote><q>We then had to persuade a Dr Boland, the Dean of Guy’s hospital and a friend of Geoffrey’s, to visit him after a haemorrhage when, after lying prone and apparently waiting for his end, Uncle Bertie had been persuaded to sit up and drink a glass of whisky. Yet within a year he was dead. He died in Milan in 1951 after a visit to Turnerschlossel which he still owned and where he was buried.</q> Dunhill, Mary, Our Family Business (The Bodley Head - Great Britain, 1979) p-107.</blockquote> | ||
Richard Dunhill reported that he became more and more out of touch with modern commercial practice in England, and when he died, the directors, particularly his uncle Alfred Henry Dunhill and his Aunt Mary, were soon able to make changes to improve the running of the company.</q> Forewords of Balfour, Michael. Alfred Dunhill, One Hundred Years and More (Weidenfield and Nicolson, London, 1992). | Richard Dunhill reported that he became more and more out of touch with modern commercial practice in England, and when he died, the directors, particularly his uncle Alfred Henry Dunhill and his Aunt Mary, were soon able to make changes to improve the running of the company.</q> Forewords of Balfour, Michael. Alfred Dunhill, One Hundred Years and More (Weidenfield and Nicolson, London, 1992). | ||