He is the godfather of Prince George, the 3-year-old son of Prince William and Kate Middleton and third in line to Britain s throne.
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“I can confirm that Her Majesty the Queen is aware of the news about the Duke of Westminster”.
As previously reported in the Echo, The Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, purchased the hall in October 2011 intending to move the centre where injured Armed Forces are treated from Headley Court in Surrey.
Among the first decisions the new Duke will be required to make is whether to abandon the family’s Glorious Twelfth shoot tomorrow on the Abbeystead estate, in Lancashire – where his father was taken ill – or carry on as normal in tribute to the late Duke.
The duke recently let his godson borrow his Cessna plane, which is worth £8 million ($10 million), so he could take his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, and their children – three-year-old Prince George and Princess Charlotte, 15-months – on holiday to the South of France.
Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor owned huge amounts of both residential and commercial property in the upmarket Mayfair and Belgravia areas of London through his company Grosvenor Property.
Among properties across the United Kingdom, he possessed 190 acres in Belgravia, a place near Buckingham Palace, and one of the most expensive districts of London.
He then headed to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1973 and passed out as an Officer Cadet.
“Little is publicly known of the former student of countryside management at Newcastle University”, according to the Guardian, which explains that, “His family guarded his privacy as he was growing up as heir apparent to the vast fortune”. Prince Harry was among the 800 guests, who were entertained by the comic Michael McIntyre and the hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks.
The new Duke of Westminster works as an account manager for bio-bean, a green technology company which recycles coffee grounds into advanced biofuels and biochemicals which recently won the 2016 Virgin Voom competition.
The new seventh Duke of Westminster is only 25 years of age, a godfather to Prince George and now “owns half of London”.
But it was inevitable that at some stage Earl Grosvenor – once described by Vanity Fair as “baby-faced” and “absurdly rich” – would come to public attention and he did so in some style.
“The party was simply unbelievable – a birthday and a party I will never forget”, the seventh duke told the Chester Chronicle at the time. “Their thoughts are very much with his family this morning”. When his father told him he would one day inherit the title and estates, it “almost made me run for the door, slam it and keep on running”.
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He had inherited his title and became chairman of Grosvenor Holdings – the commercial arm of the estate – at the age of 27 when his father Robert died in 1979.
