INTERMEZZO

The Duke of Beaufort, the Groom and the Mythical Badminton House

He is the son of Henry Robert Somers Fitzroy de Vere Somerset and Bettine Violet Malcolm and was educated at Eton College. He and his family are descendants in the male line from the House of Plantagenet.
The Duke of Beaufort
Born 23 February 1928(1928-02-23)
He was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards on 6 September 1946 as a Second Lieutenant. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 1 January 1949.
He held the office of Hereditary Keeper of Raglan Castle, was President of the British Horse Society between 1988 and 1990 and chairman of Marlborough Fine Art. He ranked 581st in the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, with an estimated wealth of £135m in land.


Monday, 1 May 1995

OBITUARY : Caroline Beaufort
The estate of Badminton after the Second World War was a world apart, where time and tradition had stood still for many years. It was best known to the outside world for the famous Horse Trials, attended each year by the monarch. Its owners, the old Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, were devoted to the chase and to the Royal Family. On hearing that their future heir was marrying, they did not ask: "Is she nice?" but "Does she hunt?"
David Somerset married Lady Caroline Thynne at St Peter's, Eaton Square, in July 1950, in the presence of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. Queen Mary, the Duchess of Beaufort's aunt, who had spent the war years - memorably - at Badminton, attended the reception at "Chips" Channon's house in Belgrave Square. David Somerset's father, Robert, a first cousin once removed of the 10th Duke, was drowned in 1965. David Somerset, dapper, handsome and well-dressed, the chairman of Marlborough Fine Art, then became heir.
Caroline Thynne was the only daughter of the sixth Marquess of Bath, the owner of Longleat, in Wiltshire, and a pioneer of the stately home industry ("We Have Seen the Lions of Longleat"), and his wife Daphne, later known (as Daphne Fielding) for her many books, such as The Duchess of Jermyn Street. Caroline's early years were spent at Longleat, where she was somehow not overwhelmed by a host of elderly Thynne aunts. While many of the Thynnes were (and are) arguably eccentric, Lady Caroline was surprisingly normal, wholly straightforward, and retained a refreshing innocence throughout life.
As a young couple, the Somersets were taken under the wing of the childless Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, with whom they lived at Badminton. The Duke was known as "Master" - he was the Master of the Horse to the Queen as well as Master of the Beaufort Hunt. "Obviously," he once declared, "the hunting of the fox has been my chief concern."
There was no special reason to expect that this arrangement would work so well, for the Somersets had wider and more cultural interests than their elders, yet the four were united by a strong mutual respect, love of Badminton and of the countryside. As their young family grew, the Somersets moved to a house nearby, only returning to Badminton when "Master" died in 1984. The 11th Duke took his place as Master of the Beaufort, and there occurred one of the best runs in years, causing the new Duchess to exclaim: "Master has inhabited the fox!" The old Duke was laid to rest under a mighty edifice to protect his remains from ill-intentioned hunt saboteurs.
The new Duchess set about her role as mistress of the great house with enormous good- humour. Badminton was in terrible disrepair, with buckets to catch the incoming water. She presided over the house's restoration, created a beautiful garden, planted thousands of new trees in the park; each year they undertook at least one major repair. Where her mother-in-law, Mary Beaufort, who lived on in the house till 1987, had occasionally taken up a post in one of the state rooms to answer questions from the tourists, suitably cordoned behind ropes, Caroline Beaufort's approach was very different. There can have been few more generous guides to a stately home.
Welcoming parties of visitors (by appointment), the Duchess would announce: "Chairs. Chairs are for sitting on, so sit on all of them, and take as many photographs as you like." Visitors roamed freely upstairs, even visiting her bedroom (where Queen Mary had resided in the war), and behaved better than had they been detained behind the traditional ropes. The Duchess's good-humour and charm were infectious.
She was also intrepid. With her husband she would depart for two months at a time to China, the Himalayas, Zimbabwe or the Amazon. Her idea of travel was "a quick dip" in waters infested with piranha or camping near lions. Active with charities - she supported 76 charities on a regular basis - she once abseiled from the outside wall of the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital to raise money for National Meningitis Awareness Week. This spring she received an honorary LLD for her charitable work from Bristol University.
The Beauforts had three sons and a daughter, Lady Anne Somerset, biographer of Elizabeth I. When cancer of the liver was diagnosed last summer, the Duchess was as open as ever. In a newspaper interview she spoke of her fate, her remaining hopes and disappointments and declared the disease "a bloody bore". She continued: "If I thought it would do any good I would scream like a stuck pig, but instead I will have to carry on as normal."

Hugo Vickers

Caroline Jane Thynne: born 28 August 1928; married 1950 David Somerset (succeeded 1984 as 11th Duke of Beaufort; three sons, one daughter); died Badminton 22 April 1995.
















Brian Higham: Badminton's long-serving stud groom
It is the end of an era at the Duke of Beaufort’s Badminton Estate. For after half a century of work, the stable manager Brian Higham is hanging up his boots and retiring at the age of 77.
Yet although he landed up working in the stable yard of one of Britain’s most iconic estates and a place immortalised forever in the adrenalin-filled sport of Eventing he had to learn his trade the hard way.
For his family was not a wealthy one and although he grew up in the countryside around the beautiful Yorkshire village of Snainton a horse of his own was not possible. His father was talented sculptor and artist who spent time in the services and it was just through working on the farms Brian learnt his trade.
“As a boy I was always keen to get a ride, and when they were getting the sugar beet out of the fields I would ride a carthorse,” he says, “and I used to beg rides to go hunting.”
But working with horses is what he always wanted to do and Badminton was his first proper horse job. He arrived here in 1959 as second man or in modern terms deputy and remained as such until 1966 when he took over the reins as stud groom or yard manager as it is known today.
And during this time he as seen some changes. He spent 25 years working with the 10th Duke, “which I was very proud of,” he says, “as he was a very famous man,” and then 26 working for the present.
“Today would not compare with the grandeur of that era,” he says, “manners have changed worldwide, there is a casualness now. You could set your clock by the old Duke if he said he was going to ride at 10 he did not five past or ten to. He would apologise if he were early. Whereas a lot of people now do not care if they are late, they should care, but they don’t.”
It is a life that his brought him the experience of mixing with people from all walks of life. He lists the Eventing greats, such as Sheila Wilcox, Mary King and Richard Walker as personal friends and admits to receiving Christmas cards and conversing regularly with Prince Charles, who he says: “Likes my homemade sloe gin which I give him every Christmas.”
And it has taken him all around the country and the world too as he has become a well-respected judge, judging at all the top shows. On the day after I met him he was jetting over to America to do some judging there. Not bad for a man in his eighth decade.
But when I suggest that he perhaps should consider himself a southerner as he has lived in the Cotswolds for over 50 years he is emphatic in his response.
“No,” he says, “I am Yorkshire born and bred and very proud of that.”
But that said he does love the area saying: “I have lived like a millionaire here,” and when he does have a free evening there is nothing he likes more than a quiet meal at The George in Nailsworth with his wife, Sherry.
So does he have any regrets on the path he has taken?
“I don’t think you can have regrets, I mean I have a great life, so many don’t have that,” he says. “But I would have liked to have trained. I have had a bit of success with the ones I did and I think I would have been able to do that.”
For despite being heavily involved in the Eventing and showing world he remains a national hunt man and over the years owned several successful pointers.
But the last few years have not been easy. Two years ago he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chemo and radiation followed. Thankfully he has now been given the all clear but this made him re-evaluate his life.
“It would have been easy just to carry on but the health thing made my mind up really,” he says, “If things can’t be done at the standards you would like then...”
Leaving the obvious unspoken. He is without doubt a perfectionist and one that likes to do a job properly.
So with retirement beckoning he can surely take things more easily - or maybe not as his plans reveal.
“Well I walk every morning and I like to ride and I will probably go to Yorkshire more. There will also be more time to travel. My wife is American and has a house in South Carolina so who knows I may go out there for a couple of weeks or a month or two.”
“I have also got a couple of pointers in training,” he adds and he does not rule out buying and selling the odd horse either.
And he will remain within sight of the stables at his estate cottage.
“The duke says I have a home for life here,” he says “and I will still be able to keep the odd horse or two on the yard.”
But the question then arises, ‘will he actually be able to retire when he will still maintain such close links to the place? Will he not be tempted to give his opinion if he feels they need it?’ After all it was his life for 50 years.
“I don’t think that would be fair on my successor, he says, “as she will want to do things her way, but my door will always be open if she needs advice.”
And there is no doubt it will not only be her seeking him out, for his door will surely remain a beacon for his numerous friends wanting to visit.


BRIAN HIGHAM‏
I was born in the Yorkshire village of Snainton in the Vale of Pickering. I came to Badminton in 1959 and was stud groom at Badminton Stables from 1966 to 2010. You can imagine that during that time, I saw many changes! Although I no longer hunt myself (I don’t want to fall off any more!), I hack regularly around the estate either with my wife Sherry or alone. I thoroughly enjoy it and it helps to keep me fit and healthy – as does my daily 2 mile walk!
I have been married to Sherry for over 15 years, after meeting by chance when she visited from America to buy a horse. The rest, as they say, is history! We both love the lifestyle we have – I feel we live like millionaires in this beautiful place! Our cottage is near the stable yard, and I have lived there since I first came to Badminton all those years ago.
One of the highlights of my year during my time at the yard, was Badminton Horse Trials at the beginning of May. The stables became a frenzy of activity as we undertook an enormous spring clean to prepare 80 to 100 stables for the world’s top event horses to come and stay.
During the summer, I do a lot of show judging (and have done for many years) and am one of Sport Horse Breeding of Great Britain’s longest serving judges. In the past, it was always a nice break from the hunting season at Badminton and I still look forward to it each year. As well as judging, people often come to me for my opinion on their horse’s health and fitness, or when buying and selling. I am not a vet but do have many years of experience and am happy to advise people, where I can. I also get asked for my opinion on the design of new yards, based on my experience at Badminton. I enjoy passing on my knowledge and I believe you never stop learning, even at my age!
I retired as Stud Groom to Badminton Stables in 2010 after 50 years of service!



How the hunt shot Labour's fox: Although hunting was banned three years ago the sport is MORE popular than ever

By Sue Reid

Cowering down a rabbit hole deep in the English countryside at 11 o'clock last Thursday morning, a year-old fox has a few seconds to live.

An inch in front of the fox's furry face, blocking all chance of escape, is Tozy the terrier with his razor-sharp teeth.
Three feet above, in the open air, two men from the local hunt are digging down towards him. Soon it will be over.

Worse off? Although Labour banned fox hunting in 2005 more foxes are being killed because hunters now have to shoot them

As the men's spades crash into the warren to reach the terrified creature, Tozy's owner takes a 3.2 Taurus pistol from his pocket and fires a shot into the the fox's forehead, killing it instantly.

After all, the terrier man, Richard, has a job to do.

For weeks, the young male fox has been causing mayhem at a farm four miles from Swindon, in Wiltshire. He has been doing what foxes like doing best: killing young pheasants, often just for fun.
'Before the ban on hunting in 2005, this fox would have stood a chance,' says Mark Hill, a 50-year-old land agent and Master of the flourishing Vale of the White Horse Hunt, which rides over a 20-mile area of the Cotswolds which includes the farm.
'If we had hunted him with hounds, he might well have got away. It was the old, the sick and the injured foxes that we used to catch then. Now that we have to shoot them, we think more foxes are being eliminated. The fox has fared the worst out of this ban.'

It is hard to disagree. For, astonishingly, today - three years after New Labour banned hunting to hounds - the hunts are flourishing. Last week, one of the country's most ardent fox hunters, former Daily Telegraph editor and Old Etonian Charles Moore, sang the praises of his favourite sport.
In the right-leaning Spectator magazine, he revealed that on a recent autumn day he and 65 other followers on horseback had ridden with his local hunt, and that hunting was now more popular than ever.
Last Boxing Day, a traditional high day in the hunting calendar, a record number of 300,000 people on horses, in cars and on foot turned out to watch 314 fox, deer and stag hunts in action in Britain. And, in another unexpected triumph for the huntsmen, there are now three more hunts operating than there were before the
ban was pushed through Parliament by Tony Blair.

Under present hunting laws, the hounds can only be used to follow a scent, but not to kill a fox. They pick up a trail laid across the land by hunt workers dragging a piece of cloth laced with fox's urine. If the hounds come across a real fox by chance, as they are apt to do, they must be called off the chase by the huntsmen.
Yet, despite this strange set of affairs, hunts are thriving. As Lord Mancroft, the Conservative peer and former Master of the Vale of the White Horse Hunt (VWH), said in a recent article in Hunting Magazine: 'We expected our world to be turned upside down - hunts to fail, hounds to be put down, and hunt staff to lose their jobs. In fact, the reverse is more accurate.

'Hunting is enjoying a renaissance, with many packs recruiting new followers in unprecedented numbers. Some hunts even have waiting lists as never before. Everybody knows the truth and few pretend otherwise. The hunting ban is a national farce, and a massive political failure.'
So what is the truth about the 300-year-old sport? We visited two of the 174 fox hunts in England and Wales - The Duke of Beaufort's Hunt, which covers an enormous 500-square-mile tract of the countryside from Bath in the south to Cirencester in the north, and the smaller VWH based on the border between Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

We spoke to those who run the hunts, those who work for them, and the people who follow them - either on horses, on foot, or in cars.

Captain Ian Farquhar, 62, a farmer and landowner, has been Master of The Beaufort since 1985, as was his father before him. It is the hunt which Prince Charles and Princes Harry and William used to enjoy following before the ban.


Class war? Captain Ian Farquhar leads the Beaufort Hunt, he thinks the ban was a class war and says the sport is really egalitarian

Captain Farquhar has broken almost every bone in his body - bar his neck - out hunting. He says: 'The fight to get a hunting ban was a class war, and yet hunting is one of the few sports that is really egalitarian, involving people from every age group, every social background, and every income bracket.'

So what kind of people are behind this hunting renaissance? This week, out hunting I saw four state school children (their farm worker families had decided that following hounds astride ponies in the autumn sunshine was preferable to a day behind a desk at the local comprehensive).
There was also a farmer called Jo with his wife (who milked the cows before they set off at dawn), and a girl from a Cirencester supermarket who told her boss she had the sniffles.

Watching from the sidelines, as followers in cars, were two retired herdsmen and a family from Swindon who were on benefits. One, a teenage boy, had a hood over his head, but still called out 'Good morning' to Captain Farquhar as he passed by in the back of a shabby 4x4 that would have looked more at home on a council estate.

'Our oldest mounted follower is 87 and has a military background,' says Farquhar. 'We have a bricklayer, shopkeepers, a fencer and some housewives. During the week it is the locals who come - at the weekends it can be 200 from all over the country.

Recently, a lady of a great age who was still riding side-saddle was persuaded to give up hunting with us on the advice of her family and her doctors. She couldn't keep up very well towards the end, but no one minded.'

Meanwhile, over at the VFH, it is much the same story. John Manners-Bell, 39, runs a market research company in the village of Brinkworth, Wiltshire. His wife is a local vet and he has two children, aged six and two.

He moved to the village two years ago from Cambridgeshire, and began to learn how to ride. On Wednesday, he went hunting in the morning, and soon after noon he was back at his desk. He has two horses, Tabitha and Holly, which he keeps at a local stable.

'I love hunting,' he says. 'I ride out with the hounds at least once a week. I don't take much notice of what the hounds are doing up at the front. I can't tell you if they have ever started to chase a fox and then been stopped by the huntsmen.

'I spend all my time concentrating on staying on the back of my horse,' he adds with a grin.

But what of the foxes themselves? Every huntsman and farmer will tell you that they are wily characters. They are omnivores and opportunists. They will eat almost anything. They can carry away a baby lamb with ease. One fox might kill 70 pheasants in a night, just for the joy of it.

Once they get the bloodlust, there is no stopping them. A fox will massacre a pen of hens yet take just one to eat. A vixen will kill a lamb and carry only the liver and the heart back to her cubs. Wha's more, the fox has no predator, apart from man.

In the year before the ban, the Beaufort Hunt's hounds killed 140 foxes. Today no one knows how many are being shot, gassed, or even snared on the 1,500 farms and smallholdings which the hunt covers. 'We suspect it is far more than it ever was,' says Captain Farquhar, his face looking grim.

And worse for the fox, research from the pro-hunting lobby has shown that for each one killed by a shotgun or rifle, another one is left horribly injured. He faces a long and lingering death.

Foxes are nimble and tend to move just as a shot is taken. They are notoriously difficult to shoot cleanly, which is why some farmers and gamekeepers have turned to more efficient ways of killing - gassing or snaring.

The Countryside Alliance, the major lobby group which fought furiously against the introduction of the ban - says that hundreds of foxes are now being exterminated as vermin, rather like rats.

Spokesman Tim Bonner said this week: 'The fox is being eliminated. It is impossible to say how many have been killed since the ban, but we believe it is more than when the fox was professionally hunted. A third of hunts say they are counting fewer foxes than in 2004.'

And far more pregnant vixens are being killed, too. When a marksman takes aim or a snare is set, it is almost impossible to tell if the victim is an expectant female.

Yet, in one of nature's strange quirks, a vixen gives off no scent when she is pregnant. So, ironically, pregnant females were completely safe from the hunts as the hounds could not follow her trail.

But what of the law which brought in the ban? According to the Countryside Alliance, now campaigning for a repeal of the 2005 Hunting Act, it is an utterly confusing piece of legislation.

One such example is that it is perfectly legal to send a terrier underground to root out a fox - and then for a VWH hunt worker like Richard to shoot it, if the fox is killing a game bird, such as a pheasant or partridge.

However, if the fox has been slaughtering lambs or piglets - which it loves to do - then it is illegal to use the same methods.

In a further oddity, the huntsmen can go out with two dogs to 'flush out' a fox from a rabbit hole, and then kill it with a gun. However, if he has three dogs it is against the law. And, even more strangely, a pack of hounds can hunt a fox if a bird of prey, such as a Golden Eagle, is then used to kill it.

Unsurprisingly, a national survey undertaken by Opinion Research two years ago found that fewer than three in ten adults in this country believe that the Hunting Act is working.

The police say it is almost impossible to enforce anyway (they have other, more pressing priorities, and cannot watch every mile covered by every hunt), while even a crown court judge, overturning the first ever conviction of a huntsman, observed that the law was 'far from simple to interpret or apply'.

Tony Wright, a Devon huntsman, had originally been found guilty of chasing two foxes across Exmoor with two hounds. The case was brought by the League Against Cruel Sports, which argued that he had allowed 'a prolonged period' of pursuit - which is also illegal.

Mr Wright, 52, said he was using the 'two dog' exemption in the Hunting Act, and thought he was obeying the rules. The case is now going to appeal in the High Court, after thousands of hours of lawyers' time and huge costs on all sides.

If the Government's intention was to spare the fox an inhumane death, while simultaneously eroding support for what it saw as a pursuit reserved for the upper classes, then it has signally failed.

The attention the ban has brought to the sport seems to have kindled an interest in it from people who might otherwise have remained uninterested. As for the foxes, ask the pro-hunt lobby, how can gassing, snaring and wildly inaccurate shooting of ever-increasing numbers be deemed as humane?

So what of the future? A lot depends on the result of the next election. David Cameron, who has hunted to hounds, says he will allow a free vote on the issue in Parliament. 'If the vote went through, there would be a Government Bill to get rid of it. I mean, in my own view, the ban is not working. It's a farce really,' he pronounced recently.

No one believes that more than the 50 men, women and child riders galloping behind the Beaufort Hunt hounds on Thursday morning. As the pack, with their green-coated Master and huntsmen, followed the scent of a piece of urine-soaked rag across the beautiful countryside, I saw a fox watching them.

They didn't see him. But he seemed to have a cocky stance. And I fancy that I saw a grin on his face.







Badminton Horse Trials - The Facts & Figures

It was the 10th Duke of Beaufort - Master - whose idea it was to hold an event in his Gloucestershire park in order that British riders could train for future international events. The first event was held in 1949.
When Golden Willow won the first Badminton in 1949, there were 22 starters from two countries, Britain and Ireland. .
Since then Great Britain has won three team golds and two individual gold medals in the Olympics; four team golds and four individual gold medals in the World Championships, and no fewer than 20 team golds and 17 individual gold medals in the European Championships.
For the first 10 years, the dressage and show-jumping arenas were sited on the old cricket ground in front of Badminton House. Torrential rain in 1959 turned the park into a sea of mud and the arenas and tradestands were moved to the present site.
The very first European Championships were staged at Badminton in 1953. The winner was Major Laurence Rook on Starlight XV.
The Trials were first televised in 1956. in 2007 there were some 16 cameras covering the event for the Outside Broadcasts Unit of the BBC.
In 1955, the Trials were moved to Windsor for one year at the invitation of The Queen, to hold the 2nd European Championships.
In 1956, the Steeplechase course was moved from the Didmarton point-to-point course to the site at The Slaits, where it stayed until discontinued in 2006.
In 1959 it was decided to run the Trials in two sections - The Great and Little Badminton. This was due to the popularity of the sport and the number of entries. This was abandoned after the 1965 competition, since when there have always been two days of dressage.
In 1961, Messrs. Whitbread took over the sponsorship of the Badminton Horse Trials and this continued until 1991, one of the longest sponsorships for any sport.
Bad weather has forced the cancellation of the Trials on three occasions - in 1966, 1975 and 1987. The terrible weather of 1962/63 which continued into the spring, forced Badminton to down-grade to a one day event. Foot and Mouth disease caused the cancellation of the 2001 Event.

Gentleman in "distress" ?

Suddenly,last saturday, I was invited to a "Black Tie" dinner at a Country House, but I didn't had a proper "smoking" ...After some hesitations ... a quick strategical visit to some "Vintage" shops delivered me a "bespoke" german dinner jacket ( for 25 euros) and independent fitting trousers, british shirt, etc., etc.,
My wife got a little hat, and there we went by bycicle and train ... an evening to remember ...

Movie Legends - Leslie Howard

Being myself an architectural historian, it is time to present you, one of the greatest ... Mark Girouard with his important and inspiring work, has played a very important role during my student years and in the most pleasant aspect of my personal initiation ... His very stimulating unique approach, always mixing Social and Architectural History makes his series of books "Life in", indispensable ...
His "Return to Camelot- Chivalry and the English Gentleman", is the best thing ever written concerning The Gothic Revival and the ideals and appeals connected with it ...
Discover and enjoy ...Yours Jeeves ...

Magic Mirror again ... Another room "chez moi"seen trough the convex mirror effect

"click" ... to enlarge


"click" ... to enlarge

Magic Mirror ... The Arnolfini effect ... One room "chez Moi"seen trough two different "regency"convex mirrors.

"Click" to enlarge and to get the full Arnolfini effect ...



"Click" to enlarge and to get the full Arnolfini effect ...

Hearst Castle: Behind the scenes like you've never seen.

The Hearsts, Media Tycoon eccentrics ... Builders of Neverland or Disneyland ?

William Randolph Hearst, the son of George Hearst, a newspaper proprietor, was born in San Francisco in 1863. After studying at Harvard University (1882-85) he took over the San Francisco Examiner from his father in 1887.

Inspired by the journalism of Joseph Pulitzer, Hearst turned the newspaper into a combination of reformist investigative reporting and lurid sensationalism. He soon developed a reputation for employing the best journalists available. This included Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Mark Twain, Richard Harding Davis and Jack London.

In 1895 Hearst purchased the New York Journal. He was now in competition with Pulitzer's New York World. This included recruiting the popular cartoonist, Richard F. Outcault from Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst also reduced the price of the New York Journal to one cent and included colour magazine sections. He also persuaded Frederick Opper, another of Pulitzer's cartoonists, to join his team.

Pulitzer's New York World and Hearst's New York Journal became involved in a circulation war, and their use of promotional schemes and sensational stories became known as yellow journalism. However, he received praise from the radical journalist, Lincoln Steffens: "Hearst, in journalism, was like a reformer in politics; he was an innovator who was crashing into the business, upsetting the settled order of things, and he was not doing it as we would have done it. He was doing it his way. I thought that Hearst was a great man, able, self-dependent, self-educated (though he had been to Harvard) and clear-headed; he had no moral illusions; he saw straight as far as he saw, and he saw pretty far, further than I did then; and, studious of the methods which he adopted after experimentation, he was driving toward his unannounced purpose: to establish some measure of democracy, with patient but ruthless force."

Over the next few years Hearst became the owner of 28 newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Cosmopolitan and the Washington Herald. He used his newspapers and magazines to campaign for an aggressive foreign policy. As a result of distorted and exaggerated reporting, Hearst was blamed for the war between the United States and Spain (1897-98).

Hearst was a member of the United States House of Representatives (1903-07) However, he was defeated for mayor (1905 and 1909) and the post of governor of New York (1906). An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed United States involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations.

In the 1920s Hearst built a castle on a 240,000 acre ranch at San Simeon, California. At his peak he owned 28 major newspapers and 18 magazines, along with several radio stations and movie companies. However, the Great Depression weakened his financial position and by 1940 he had lost personal control of his vast communications empire.

Hearst upset the left-wing in America by being a pro-Nazi in the 1930s and a staunch anti-Communist in the 1940s. William Randolph Hearst died in 1951. It is believed that Hearst's career inspired the Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane.





the seattle times
Hearst Castle a monument to eccentric excess
California's Hearst Castle is certainly a monument to the man: to his vanity, his eccentricity, his force of will, his uneven taste in art.
By Eric Noland
Los Angeles Daily News
Nearly a century ago, when newspaper publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst conceived a summer dwelling for a ridge top on the central California coast, he wanted it to make an unequivocal statement about himself.
Mission accomplished. Hearst Castle, as it is known today, is certainly a monument to the man: to his vanity, his eccentricity, his force of will, his uneven taste in art. As visitors walk the terraces and hallways today, they can't help but conclude that this is what happens when an unsophisticated fellow has more money than he knows what to do with.
Hearst was more of an art accumulator than a collector. Rooms feel crammed with artifacts, like a cluttered museum, and there's no sense of order to the design — a jumble of periods and styles and places of origin.
A similar disorder prevailed in the construction of the mansion itself. "Workmen didn't like working here," said guide Jacquie Calvert on a recent tour of the place, "because they would build something and he'd have it torn down the next day."
In his biography "The Chief," author David Nasaw chronicles one such incident in which Hearst walked into a completed guesthouse and said he didn't like the position of the fireplace.
It was ripped out, the wall closed up, and a new fireplace constructed in another location. Six months later, Hearst surveyed it again and said, "No, that was a mistake. We shouldn't have moved it from where it was. Take it out and put it back where it was."
All of this only heightens a visitor's fascination with the castle. Europe has its estates and châteaux to enchant tourists, but beyond Elvis' Graceland (an apt comparison, actually), America is a bit shy on grand palaces of excess.
Hearst Castle, which opened to the public as a state park in 1958, now averages nearly 700,000 visitors per year. They plunk down $24 per person for any one of four daytime tours (an evening tour costs more), then ride buses up the hillside to marvel at what Hearst called Casa Grande.
It's a real-estate agent's dream listing: 80,200 square feet of living space, including the basement and three guesthouses; 56 bedrooms, including servants' quarters; 61 bathrooms. Also 41 fireplaces, two swimming pools (outdoor and indoor), a movie theater, two tennis courts. All of this perched at 1,600 feet, with an unobstructed view of miles of unspoiled coastline.
When the castle became a state park, seven years after Hearst died, tours provided glimpses into a few of the public rooms, but "ever since it was opened, people have been clamoring to see more of it," said spokesman Dan Eller. "We've had to keep expanding opportunities."
The most popular Experience Tour still provides an overview, and will accommodate up to 55 people, but for something a little different — and a little more intimate — repeat visitors should consider one of the specialty tours.
After taking the Experience Tour in the morning, we signed up for the Garden Tour in the afternoon, and joined about a dozen others for a stroll across the grounds with Calvert, a knowledgeable guide who dispensed information with enthusiasm and humor.
Like the building and its interior design, the gardens also bespoke the idiosyncrasies of the man.
Hearst didn't start building his castle until he was in his late 50s, and he was too impatient to wait for trees or shrubs to grow to maturity, we were told, so he had most everything planted full-grown.
He wanted guests to see colorful plantings at all times of the year, so three greenhouses were kept busy and the flower beds were torn up and replanted with annuals and bulbs four times a year.
Fruit on the trees, he felt, provided artistic splashes of color, so he forbade it being picked.
Tree roses were among the more than 1,000 rose bushes on the property, so that guests could enjoy the blooms and their scent without bending over.
The native coast live oaks on the hillside were sacrosanct, with all building done around them. Accordingly, as we walked the 360-degree esplanade around the castle, we noticed that it wasn't of uniform width, but narrowed in places to accommodate the great trees.
The Garden Tour pays a visit to the Casa Del Mar guesthouse, which was Hearst's quarters while the main house was being built. In his oversize bathtub, he had a seawater bath every day at 2 p.m., Calvert said.
On any tour of the castle, a visitor can readily be numbed by the opulence of the furnishings and the confounding hodgepodge of art.
We found ourselves marveling instead at the little things — beautifully painted squares of tile, the ocean breeze that wafted in through a bedroom window or the astonishing scope of that view.






the new york observer
The Hearst Family

By Gillian Reagan

William Randolph Hearst was the Rupert Murdoch of his day. “He is,” President Teddy Roosevelt once wrote, “the most potent single influence for evil we have in our life.” Hearst inherited his father’s newspaper business and kept going: At his peak, he owned 28 major newspapers and 18 magazines, not to mention radio stations and movie studios. At 23, two years after getting kicked out of Harvard, he took control of the San Francisco Examiner. He acquired the New York Morning Journal in 1895 and turned it into a bastion of sensational celebrity news and yellow journalism. He married a chorus girl named Millicent. Although he lost in two bids to become Mayor of New York City and another to become Governor of the state, in 1902 he did win election to Congress. Fireworks at a celebration in Madison Square Garden reportedly killed dozens. His towering personality was portrayed in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Hearst offered RKO Pictures $800,000 destroy all prints and burn the negatives of the film. When he died in 1951, he gave his sons five of the 13 seats on the board of trustees overseeing the Hearst Corporation.
William Randolph Hearst Jr.—“Young Bill”—took the helm. He was a cub reporter for The New York American, publisher of the New York Journal-American and a World War II correspondent before winning the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Soviet Union. He later wrote, “I lived in my father’s shadow all my life.” In reference to the Hearst name, he said, “I don’t need a title. My father gave me one when I was born.” He divorced twice before marrying gossip columnist Austine McDonnell in 1948. The couple had two sons, Austin and William Randolph III, who became publisher of the San Francisco Examiner in 1984 but then left the paper to become a partner at the investment company Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. He is currently a director of the Hearst Corporation.
Young Bill’s older brother George Randolph Hearst spent time as vice president of the Hearst board. He and his wife, Rosalie May Wynn, had George Randolph Hearst Jr., who at age 79 is the oldest living heir and has been serving as board chairman of the Hearst Corporation since 1996. Forbes ranked him No. 160 in its list of the 400 Richest Americans, with a net worth of more than $2 billion. He has two daughters and two sons, including George III, who is a vice president at the Hearst Corporation and associate publisher of the Albany Times Union.
Another of the original five brothers was John Randolph Hearst, who was president of Harper’s Bazaar as well as general manager of the Hearst radio enterprise and publisher of the New York Daily Mirror. He died at age 49 in 1958, leaving four children, including John Randolph Hearst Jr.—a Hearst director who now controls his father’s branch of the trust—and William Randolph Hearst II.
The brother who lived the longest was Randolph Apperson Hearst—“Randy”—who attended Harvard and was chairman of Hearst Corporation from 1973 to 1996. He was serving as editor and president of the San Francisco Examiner when his daughter Patty was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, putting him in his own newspaper’s headlines. He had four other daughters: Catherine Hearst, Virginia Anne Hearst Randt, Anne Randolph Hearst and Victoria Veronica Hearst.
Of the third generation, Patricia Hearst Shaw is certainly the most famous: As a Berkeley sophomore in 1974, she was kidnapped and apparently brainwashed by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical anti-fascist group that advocated the overthrow of corporations and governments. The S.L.A. demanded a $400 million ransom, while she was drawn into participating in a whirlwind of illegal activities, including a bank robbery. She served almost two years in jail before President Jimmy Carter helped release her. She married an ex-cop, Bernard Shaw, and moved to Connecticut before Bill Clinton officially pardoned her in 2001. She was the leading witness in a trial against S.L.A. members in 2002. She has two daughters: Gillian Hearst Shaw, 25, who can be seen flitting around fashion shows and the Hamptons and recently competed to win the starring role in Social (a reality show about, well, socialites); and Lydia Hearst Shaw, 22, who prances on the runway, pouts in ads for Louis Vuitton and Prada, and dates rock stars and party boys.
While Patty Hearst’s sister, Anne Randolph Hearst, was never kidnapped by crazed maniacs, she has been swept off her feet by soigné author Jay McInerney, whom she recently married. She is contributing editor of Hearst’s Town & Country and has a daughter, Amanda Hearst, a 22-year old model who is studying art history at Fordham University and is the fresh face of the preppy-clothing powerhouse Lilly Pulitzer.


It was a clash of the titans. William Randolph Hearst, the lord and ruler of San Simeon. And Orson Welles, the ambitious young man with a golden touch, who set out to dethrone him. It was a fight from which neither man ever fully recovered.

Long before Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was released in 1941, there was a buzz about the movie and the "boy genius" who made it. At a preview screening, nearly everyone present realized that they had seen a work of brilliance--except Hedda Hopper, the leading gossip columnist of the day. She hated the movie, calling it "a vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man."

Citizen Kane was a brutal portrait of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. When Hearst learned through Hopper of Welles' film, he set out to protect his reputation by shutting the film down. Hollywood executives, led by Louis B. Mayer, rallied around Hearst, attempting to buy Citizen Kane in order to burn the negative. At the same time, Hearst's defenders moved to intimidate exhibitors into refusing to show the movie. Threats of blackmail, smears in the newspapers, and FBI investigations were used in the effort.

Hearst's campaign was largely successful. It would be nearly a quarter-century before Citizen Kane was revived--before Welles would gain popular recognition for having created one of cinema's great masterpieces.

"Hearst and Welles were proud, gifted, and destructive--geniuses each in his way," says producer Thomas Lennon. "The fight that ruined them both was thoroughly in character with how they'd lived their lives."

Orson Welles was just twenty-four when he took aim at William Randolph Hearst. The brash upstart was well on his way to claiming Hollywood as his own. A few years earlier, his infamous radio broadcast, War of the Worlds, had terrified listeners and won him the sweetest contract Hollywood had ever seen. With a reputation as a gifted radio and theater director, Welles' arrogance was founded on a track record of success and a lifetime of encouragement.

"Everybody told me from the moment I could hear that I was absolutely marvelous," Welles once told an interviewer.

Hearst was a 76-year-old newspaper magnate whose daring and single-mindedness had made him a publishing legend. The son of a wealthy mine owner, he too had been raised to believe he could have everything. He built his empire selling newspapers filled with entertaining stories that were often scandalous and, occasionally, pure fiction.

"We had a crime story that was going to be featured in a 96-point headline on page one," remembers Vern Whaley, an editor for Hearst's Herald-Examiner. "When I found the address that was in the story, that address was a vacant lot. So I hollered over at the rewrite desk, I said, 'You got the wrong address in this story. This is a vacant lot.' The copy chief that night was a guy named Vic Barnes. And he says, 'Sit down, Vern.' He says, 'The whole story's a fake.'"

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., remembers his father asking Hearst why he preferred concentrating on newspapers, with their limited, regional appeal, rather than spending more energy on motion pictures and their worldwide audience. Fairbanks recalls Hearst's reply: "I thought of it, but I decided against it. Because you can crush a man with journalism, and you can't with motion pictures."

Hearst began his empire with one small newspaper in San Francisco, then expanded to New York where, with flair and daring, he created the top selling of the city's fourteen newspapers. But he always wanted more, and eventually he controlled the first nationwide chain--with papers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and Atlanta. Soon, an estimated one in five Americans was reading a Hearst paper every week.



daily mail
Terrorist's daughter who grew up to be the face of a lingerie brand

By Liz Thomas


The picture of her wielding a machine gun was one of the most infamous of the seventies, but now it is Patty Hearst's model daughter Lydia who is striking a memorable pose.

Newspaper heiress Patty became notorious after joining the American guerilla group that kidnapped her.

More than three decades later, her 23 year-old daughter has been named the face and body of lingerie designers Myla and appears in a series of provocative poses wearing satin and silk underwear

She started modeling four years ago and has since worked with leading photographers including Mario Testino and Mark Abrams.
In the past year her career has taken off most recently at the "Fashion Oscars", she was named "Supermodel of the Year
Her ascent to stardom is a far cry from her mother's. In 1974, Patty Hearst then aged 19, was kidnapped by left-wing US guerrilla group the Symbionese Liberation Army from her family home in California.
Her captors initially demanded for the release of jailed members of their radical group, and later for the Hearst family to distribute £30 of food to every poor person in California.
Neither was carried out and Hearst later claimed that she was kept in a cupboard for months.
She shocked her family when she eventually joined the group and adopted the name Tania.
The image of her holding the gun caused controversy in the seventies. She was later arrested with other members of the SLA after a bank robbery.
Despite claiming that she was brainwashed, Hearst was sentenced to seven years in jail. President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence after two years and later Bill Clinton eventually bestowed a presidential pardon.
Hearst later married her former bodyguard Bernard Shaw in 1979. The couple are still married and have two grown up daughters.
Initially she tried her hand as an actress but most recently has made her name as a dog-breeder

The Hearst family name is one of the best known in the US. Her grandfather – press baron William Randolph - built up one of the largest magazine and newspaper businesses in the world.
He was caricatured by Orson Welles in classic film Citizen Kane. Her father Randolph was valued at $1.8 billion shortly before his death in 2001 at the age of 85.
Luxury lingerie brand Myla was founded in 1999 and is now worth in excess of £25 million.