Sir Henry Keswick, head of Jardine Matheson and owner of The Spectator during a golden era, died 5 November, 2024. He was 86.
Keswick was a youthful taipan of Jardine Matheson, his family’s Far Eastern trading house, and later, for four decades, its presiding spirit from London. He was also a benevolent proprietor of The Spectator magazine, though the political career that he hoped might follow did not transpire.
He joined Jardines in 1961 and was assigned to the firm's offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. He was made a director in 1967, senior managing director in 1970 and chairman in 1972. He retired as senior managing director and chairman in 1975. He returned to London and is the current chairman of Jardine Matheson Holdings.
Henry Neville Lindley Keswick, William Jardine's great-grandson, was born in Shanghai, 29 September, 1938. He was the eldest of three sons of Sir William “Tony” Keswick (1903-90), who combined his role as a resident director of Jardines with the chairmanship of the Municipal Council of Shanghai’s International Settlement, and was later a director of the Bank of England. Henry's mother was Mary Etheldreda Lindley (1911-2009), a great-granddaughter of Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat (1828-87).
Henry had a sister, Teresa, and two brothers, Sir John Chippendale "Chips" Keswick (1940-2024), who was not associated with Jardine Matheson but instead with the London merchant bank, Hambros. He was the chairman of Arsenal football club, who died in April, and a brother Simon (born 1942), also a managing director of Jardine Matheson.
It was his cousin Hon. Annabel Thérèse (Tessa) Fraser (1942-2022) – then married to the 14th Lord Reay (1937-2013), but who became Henry Keswick’s wife in 1985 – who first suggested that he should buy The Spectator. He called on the magazine’s then owner, Harry Creighton, and agreed to buy it for £75,000.
Henry Keswick’s country home was Oare House, a Georgian mansion near Marlborough in Wiltshire, where he and his wife commissioned a contemporary pavilion by the Chinese-American architect IM Pei. In the Keswick homeland of Dumfriesshire, Henry enjoyed the sporting life at Glenkiln, a wild domain inherited from his father with its collection of sculptures by Moore and Epstein in moorland settings; Henry Moore’s Standing Figure, valued at £3 million, was stolen from the estate in 2015.
He also owned and greatly improved an 18,000-acre grouse moor at Hunthill in Angus. For recreation in London, Keswick was a keen bridge player at the Portland Club.
He was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2009.
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