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Mark Birley
Marcus Oswald Hornby Lecky Birley (29 May 1930 – 24 August 2007), known as Mark Birley, was a British entrepreneur known for his investments in the hospitality industry. Early life Mark Birley was the son of Sir Oswald Birley (1880–1952), the royal and society portrait painter, and the artist and gardener, Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike. His sister, Maxime de la Falaise (1922–2009), became a noted fashion model of the 1950s; Maxime's daughter, Loulou de la Falaise (1948–2011), was a muse to the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. He was educated at Eton where he excelled at drawing. After doing his National Service he went up to University College, Oxford to read PPE but he left after failing his first year exams after national service. He then started working as a copywriter for J. Walter Thompson. Career In 1963, Birley founded Annabel's at Berkeley Square in the Mayfair district in central London. The club was named for his wife, the former Lady Annabel Vane- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge, making it the 18th-oldest Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) school. Eton is particularly well-known for its history, wealth, and notable alumni, called Old Etonians. Eton is one of only three public schools, along with Harrow (1572) and Radley (1847), to have retained the boys-only, boarding-only tradition, which means that its boys live at the school seven days a week. The remainder (such as Rugby in 1976, Charterhouse in 1971, Westminster in 1973, and Shrewsbury in 2015) have since become co-educational or, in the case of Winchester, as of 2021 are undergoing the transition to that status. Eton has educated prime ministers, world leaders, Nobel laureates, Academy Award and BAFTA award-winning actors, and ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles, Prince Of Wales
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to accede to the British throne following the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, on 8 September 2022. Charles was born in Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and was three when his mother ascended the throne in 1952, making him the heir apparent. He was made Prince of Wales in 1958 and his investiture was held in 1969. He was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun schools, as was his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Charles later spent six months at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge, Charles served in the Air Force and Navy from 1971 to 1976. In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Kensington
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the railways in the late 19th century and the opening (and shutting) and naming of local tube stations. The area has many museums and cultural landmarks with a high number of visitors, such as the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Adjacent affluent centres such as Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Kensington, have been considered as some of the most exclusive real estate in the world. Geography As is often the case in other areas of London, the boundaries for South Kensington are arbitrary and have altered with time. This is due in part to usage arising from the tube stops and other landmarks which developed across Brompton. A contemporary definition is the commercial area around the Sout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thurloe Lodge
Thurloe Lodge is a house at 17 Thurloe Place in the South Kensington district of London. It was the home of the actor manager Nigel Playfair and was subsequently the home of Mark Birley who founded Annabel's nightclub in Berkeley Square. Birley's daughter, India Jane Birley, sold Thurloe Lodge in 2011 for £17 million. History The house began as a pair of semi-detached cottages built in 1843. The area in which the house stands was then considered to be Brompton. They were converted into a single residence in 1867. In 1922 the actor-manager Nigel Playfair bought the house on a long lease from Lady George Campbell who had inherited the Thurloe Estate. Playfair and his family had previously lived at 26 Pelham Crescent. He bought the cottages with the proceeds from his successful revival of ''The Beggar's Opera'' at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. Playfair engaged Darcy Braddell to remodel the house. Humphry Deane was jointly credited with the remodelling work. Deane was Braddel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebral palsy, brain injury, osteogenesis imperfecta, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, and more. Wheelchairs come in a wide variety of formats to meet the specific needs of their users. They may include specialized seating adaptions, individualized controls, and may be specific to particular activities, as seen with sports wheelchairs and beach wheelchairs. The most widely recognized distinction is between motorized wheelchairs, where propulsion is provided by batteries and electric motors, and manual wheelchairs, where the propulsive force is provided either by the wheelchair user or occupant pushing the wheelchair by hand ("self-propelled"), by an attendant pushing from the rear using the handle( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Aspinall (zoo Owner)
John Victor Aspinall (11 June 1926 – 29 June 2000) was an English zoo and casino owner. From upper class beginnings he used gambling to move to the centre of British high society in the 1960s. He was born in Delhi during the British Raj, and was a citizen of the United Kingdom. Early life John Victor Aspinall, known to all his friends as "Aspers", was born in Delhi, British India on 11 June 1926, the son of Lt-Col. Dr Robert Stivala Aspinall (1895–1954). Born Stivala, the doctor adopted the name "Aspinall" after joining the Indian Medical Service, being known for some time as Robert Aspinall-Stivala), a British Army surgeon of British parentage and Maltese origin. His wife was Mary Grace Horn (died 1987), the daughter of engineer Clement Samuel Horn, of Goring-by-Sea, Sussex. Years later, when he pressed his father for money to cover his gambling debts, he discovered that his biological father was George Bruce, a soldier of Nordic descent. Aspinall attended Felsted School ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital, Lomé, is located. It covers about with a population of approximately 8 million, and has a width of less than between Ghana and its eastern neighbor Benin. From the 11th to the 16th century, tribes entered the region from various directions. From the 16th century to the 18th century, the coastal region was a trading center for Europeans to purchase slaves, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast". In 1884, Germany declared a region including a protectorate called Togoland. After World War I, rule over Togo was transferred to France. Togo gained its independence from France in 1960. In 1967, Gnassingbé Eyadéma led a successful military coup d'état, after which he became president of an anti-communist, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir James Goldsmith
Sir James Michael Goldsmith (26 February 1933 – 18 July 1997) was a French-British financier, tycoon''Billionaire: The Life and Times of Sir James Goldsmith'' by Ivan Fallon and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family. His controversial business and finance career led to ongoing clashes with British media, frequently involving litigation or the threat of litigation. In 1994 he was elected to represent a French constituency as a Member of the European Parliament. He founded the short-lived Eurosceptic Referendum Party in the United Kingdom, which became an early campaigner for opposition to Britain's membership of the European Union. Early life Born in Paris, Goldsmith was the son of luxury hotel tycoon and former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Major Frank Goldsmith and his French wife Marcelle Mouiller, and younger brother of environmental campaigner Edward Goldsmith. Frank Goldsmith had previously changed the family name from the German ''Goldschmidt'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 8th Marquess Of Londonderry
Edward Charles Stewart Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 8th Marquess of Londonderry, (18 November 1902 – 17 October 1955), styled Lord Stewart until 1915 and Viscount Castlereagh between 1915 and 1946, was a British peer and politician. Early life Born on 18 November 1902, into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family with its roots in Ulster and County Durham, he was the second child and only son of the 7th Marquess of Londonderry and his wife, The Honourable Edith Helen Chaplin. King Edward VII stood sponsor at his christening in the Chapel Royal (St. James's Palace) on 16 December 1902, the other sponsors being his grandfather Lord Londonderry, Hon. Arthur Meade (later Earl of Clanwilliam), and the Duchess of Teck. He was educated at Eton College. In 1911, he was a page at the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. He was painted holding his grandfather's coronet by Philip de László. The portrait now hangs at Mount Stewart, County Down. He was known formally by his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bath & Racquets Club
The Bath & Racquets Club is a private members gym and squash club at 49 Brook's Mews in London's Mayfair district. The club has 300 members and is the most expensive private gym club in London. It was established by Mark Birley in 1989. Birley sold the club with his four other Mayfair clubs, Annabel's, Harry's Bar, Mark's Club, and George, to Richard Caring in 2007. History The Bath & Racquets Club is located at 49 Brook's Mews in London's Mayfair district. The club was established by Mark Birley in 1989 after a visit to the Racquet and Tennis Club in New York City. He had previously opened the members clubs Annabel's in 1963 and Harry's Bar in 1979. The significant financial cost of opening the Bath & Racquets Club forced Birley to sell part of the wine cellar of Annabel's. In 2007 Birley sold his four Mayfair clubs, including the Bath & Racquets, to Richard Caring for £90 million. Wafic Saïd was a director of the club in the early 1990s. The club is now part of the 'Birley ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walbrook Club
The Walbrook Club is a social and business dining club near the Bank of England and the Mansion House located in the Ward of Walbrook in London. The Club is set in a Queen Anne-style townhouse at the end of a private court next door to the UK offices of Rothschild's, the Church of St Stephen's, and opposite the Bloomberg European Headquarters. There is a bar, a dining room, and two smaller private rooms. History Formerly the family offices of the life peer and former Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, Lord Palumbo, The Walbrook Club opened its doors in May 2000 and was the last club designed by the late Mark Birley of Mark's Club, Annabel's Annabel's is a private members club at 46 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London. It was opened at 44 Berkeley Square in 1963 by Mark Birley and named for his wife Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. It was founded in the basement of the Clermont ... and Harry's Bar. The townhouse itself was designed and built in the ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Palumbo, Baron Palumbo
Peter Garth Palumbo, Baron Palumbo (born 20 July 1935) is a property developer and art collector. Palumbo was the last chairperson of the Arts Council of Great Britain and a life peer. He sat as a Conservative in the House of Lords from 1991 to 2019. Early life Lord Palumbo is the son of Rudolph Palumbo, himself a major property developer, and his first wife Elsie Gregory. He was educated at Scaitcliffe, at Englefield Green, Surrey, and then at Eton College and studied law and jurisprudence at Worcester College, Oxford, where he graduated with a third-class degree. Career Notable property projects and homes In the 1960s Palumbo commissioned Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to build a tower in London; although it was designed, it was never built.Carol Vogel (4 October 2003)Celebrated Mies House Up for Auction''The New York Times''. In 1972 Palumbo bought Farnsworth House in the US (outside of Chicago), designed by Mies van der Rohe, to which Palumbo added the designer's furnitur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
