Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner

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Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner and Stefan Szczesny on Mustique

Colin Christopher Paget Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner (born December 1, 1926 in London , † August 27, 2010 in Soufrière , St. Lucia ) was a British peer and businessman .

Life

Tennant was born in 1926 to Christopher Gray Tennant, 2nd Baron Glenconner , and Pamela Winefred Paget. Edward Wyndham Tennant and Stephen Tennant were his uncles, the writer Emma Tennant his younger sister. After his parents' divorce in 1935, Colin Tennant rarely saw his father for years.

He attended Eton College and spent his holidays with his maternal grandmother, Muriel Paget. After attending Eton College, he joined the Irish Guards and served there until the end of World War II . After the war he studied from 1949 the history of international law ( Diplomatic History ) at the New College of the University of Oxford . After graduating, he began working in the family business. During the early 1950s he often took part in amateur theater performances. In 1953 he and Princess Margaret played in the production of the Edgar Wallace play The Frog with the Mask ( The Frog ), he in the title role of a serial killer, she as an assistant director . It was at this time that the media became aware of him as a companion to Princess Margaret. In 1954 he denied newspaper reports that he would soon announce his engagement to the princess. He continued to be close friends with Princess Margaret later on. His wife was maid of honor with her.

In the late 1950s (1958, according to other sources: 1959) he bought the island of Mustique , which is part of the Grenadines , for $ 45,000 . He built a new village for the islanders, planted coconut palms, vegetables and fruits. He also worked for the development of the fishing industry. He received the money from the sale of real estate in Trinidad , which was bought in the mid-19th century by his ancestor Charles Tennant, the second son of the Scottish scientist Charles Tennant . In 1960 Princess Margaret and her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon , visited Mustique on their honeymoon, where they received a piece of land as a wedding present from Tennant, on which Princess Margaret built her holiday home "Les Jolies Eaux".

In 1963, Tennant's father sold the family business C Tennant & Sons to Consolidated Goldfields . Initially, father and son remained chairman and deputy chairman. After his father retired in 1967, Colin Tennant resigned after failing to take the chair.

Mustique became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for Tennant celebrations and visits from musicians, aristocrats and members of the royal family, including Princess Margaret. Later came Mick Jagger , Bryan Ferry and David Bowie as well as John Cleese , David Frost and Nigel Dempster . When business problems arose due to the recession in 1977, Tennant joined the Scottish National Party and briefly considered running for the House of Commons . In 1978 he sold 13 paintings by Lucian Freud from an important collection that had been created in the 1950s and 1960s. This sale marked the end of the friendship between Freud and Tennant. Eventually, after disagreements over the financial management of the island, Tennant sold his shares in Mustique for £ 1,000,000. He sold his own house to Christina Onassis' third husband, former KGB agent Sergei Kauzov .

In 1992 he went into exile in St. Lucia , where he ran the Bang Between the Pitons restaurant for a long time . He decided to buy land in St. Lucia, but was not very successful in business there. He fell out with Nobel Prize laureate Derek Walcott when he turned down Tennant's plans to build a large hotel complex at a religious place of worship. In 1992, Tennant had to sell his £ 6,000,000 London house to raise funds. In the mid-1990s, Tennant withdrew from the public and lived in a small house on the beach.

In 2000, a documentary entitled The Man Who Bought Mustique was made about him. His first visit to Mustique since his exile was shown there. He most recently worked on his autobiography and was involved in the construction of an exclusive holiday resort on St. Lucia. Tennant last suffered from cancer .

Membership in the House of Lords

On October 4, 1983, through the death of his father, he inherited the title of Baron Glenconner and the associated seat in the House of Lords , as well as the title of Baronet Tennant. He gave his inaugural address on November 23, 1992. In 1996, he spoke for the last time on the subject of Anglo-Caribbean relations. His membership in the House of Lords ended on November 11, 1999 under the House of Lords Act 1999.

family

On April 21, 1956, he married Lady Anne Veronica Coke, daughter of Major Thomas William Edward Coke, 5th Earl of Leicester of Holkham , and Lady Elizabeth Mary Yorke. Princess Margaret and Armstrong-Jones, who was there as a photographer , were also present at the wedding, and they met there for the first time.

Together they had five children, three sons and two daughters. His grandson, Cody Charles Edward Tennant, 4th Baron Glenconner , later inherited his titles as the eldest son died of hepatitis in 1996 . One son died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of thirty . For this reason, the third oldest son is currently the likely title heir ( Heir Presumptive ), who has suffered from a disability since an accident in 1987 .

Tennant and Lady Anne Tennant lived temporarily in their home on St. Lucia and partly in England .

In December 2009, the then 83-year-old Tennant found out that he was the father of an illegitimate son from a previous love affair with the artist model Henrietta Moraes . A paternity test confirmed Tennant's paternity.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary: Lord Glenconner, aristocrat article in Scotsman, August 31, 2010
  2. ↑ Lord Glenconner Stays in Picture by Taking a Film Crew Hostage article in The New York Observer, May 13, 2001
  3. ↑ Joshua Bowler: the daddy of all Mustique secrets article in The Sunday Times, January 10, 2010
predecessor Office successor
Christopher Tennant Baron Glenconner
1983-2010 		Cody Tennant
personal data
SURNAME Tennant, Colin, 3rd Baron Glenconner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tennant, Colin Christopher Paget
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British peer and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 2010
Place of death Soufrière (St. Lucia) , St. Lucia