William Waldorf Astor

Upon the death of his father in early 1890, Astor inherited a personal fortune of US$100 million, making him one of the richest men in America. In 1891 he emigrated to Britain (suggesting that the freedom to move was something William Waldorf had been waiting for, he and the American press had a mutual loathing). An early foray into Republican politics had taken him to the New York State Assembly and then State Senate, though he was defeated at national level. William Waldorf was swimming against the tide with his belief that political power should remain in the hands of a small, sophisticated elite among which the Astors could now include themselves. Given the hidden cronyism that the Astors utilised for business purposes, the public business of politics does not seem to be a natural fit – William Waldorf subsequently described it as “a fine roll in the mire”.  All the while, Manhattan was a densely packed collection of slums.  With waves of immigrants entering the city and land at a premium, landlords bought up buildings and subdivided them into ever smaller partitions, housing dozens of people together in squalid, dark, unventilated rooms. Astor’s was a property empire which held this misery cheek by jowl with the grandest hotels in the world: the Waldorf and the Astoria, which would eventually merge.

His Two Temple Place project began almost immediately upon his arrival in the UK, starting in 1892 and completing in 1895. Two Temple Place was built by a migrant looking for a home and a statement office in England. An office which continued to manage a real-estate and business empire that remained largely in the US. Astor was an analogue rather than digital nomad. In London, in addition to his office administrating the family estate in New York, Astor bought a number of newspapers, using the Pall Mall Magazine as an outlet for his own writing and demanding a harshly conservative editorial policy. Most notably for us today he also owned The Observer from 1911, which thereafter remained in the family for over 70 years. Astor made considerable philanthropic gifts in the UK despite his reputation as “walled-off Astor” hidden away in his properties. He was made a British citizen in 1899 and had always sought ennoblement. He did not help himself however with arguments with the Duke of Westminster and an intense disapproval of the womanising Edward VII.  In January 1916 he received what he regarded as an overdue peerage under the title of Hever Castle.