THE UNRESURRECTED MOLE

See Also: BIG TICH; CEMETERIES Highgate Cemetery; THE CITY OF LONDON & FINANCE; ECCENTRICITY; ESTATES The Howard de Walden Estate; THE INDENTURED EARL; TUNNELS

As a young man Lord John Bentinck¹ was privileged but unexceptional. He served as a junior officer in the Grenadier Guards and sat in the Commons as a Tory M.P.. In the 1830s he courted a singer but they did not marry. He was interested in horseracing but moved little in society. In 1854 he inherited the dukedom of Portland and his family s estates. These included much of the West End to the north of the western section of Oxford Street. Three years later Queen Victoria indicated to him that she wished to make him a Knight of the Garter. He declined her offer.

Portland devoted himself to tending to his properties and became increasingly reclusive. However, with his vast wealth, he did develop a new passion - tunnelling. Welbeck in Nottinghamshire was his grace s favourite country residence.² There, he set in place a programme of excavations. These created a large subterranean network of rooms and tunnels that had no purpose other than to satisfy the wish of his grace that they should be dug. In 1877 the monarch extended the offer of a Garter a second time. Again, the honour was refused. The duke died two years later.

Thomas Druce was a prosperous merchant who owned the Baker Street Bazaar. Following his death in 1864, his coffin was placed in his family vault in Highgate Cemetery. In 1896 Mrs Druce, the widow of Mr Druce s son Thomas, made a request to the Home Secretary that her late father-in-law s casket should be opened. She claimed that in reality Druce sr. had been the peer. She stated: that for many years the ostensible bachelor had enjoyed spending much of his time playing the role of the tradesman and had raised a family while doing so; that he had eventually tired of it and so had organised his own sham death and funeral; and that he had then returned to leading his reclusive, ducal life for a further fifteen years. Mrs Druce claimed that the coffin was empty and that opening it would act as proof of her contentions, thereby enabling the Druce family to inherit his grace s estates.

The Home Secretary was not minded to act as Mrs Druce wished. She turned to the law. In 1903 she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. However, other members of the family continued the action. To help finance it, a public company was set up. By investing in it, people were able to enjoy the prospect of being able to benefit financially from the Portland inheritance. In 1907 the coffin was finally opened. It contained the corpse of the late Mr Druce sr.. The Druce-Portland Company s share price collapsed.

Location: 19 Cavendish Square, W1M 9AD. Portland s townhouse. (blue, yellow)

Highgate Cemetery, Swains Lane, N6 6PJ

Website: www.hdwe.co.uk (The Howard de Walden Estate)

¹. His surname grew to be Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck.

². Portland employed so many servants at Welbeck that some of them had servants of their own.

David Backhouse 2024