Zac Goldsmith, Tory son of Sir James and Annabel Goldsmith (former wife of Mark Birley) defeated the Liberal Democrat incumbent in the 2010 general election. He represents Richmond Park.
British billionaire businessman Sir James Goldsmith was born in France in 1933, lived mostly in England, returned to France in old age and died in Spain in 1997. He was 64.
A wealthy man, Goldsmith could afford to support different families in different countries simultaneously - and did. The distribution of his estate promised to be interesting, not least to the tax authorities in several countries.
Sir James had homes in at least seven countries. Although resident in France, he chose to die in Spain: with death imminent, he left his sickbed in France for his home in Spain. He died the very next day, on Spanish soil.
Why did he travel when he was at death's door?
In her 2004 autobiography, Lady Annabel Goldsmith says that, although gravely ill, her husband yearned for the sun.
Many believed that his relocation had more to do with taxation than tanning.
Globalisation on a family level
Goldsmith fathered children with, by my count, four women. His first wife, the Bolivian heiress Maria Isabel Patiño, died when she was seven months pregnant. Their daughter was born by Caesarian section.
Goldsmith had a son and daughter with his French second wife Ginette, and three children with his British wife Annabel: Jemima, Zac (Zacharias) and Ben. The nightclub Annabel's was named in her honour by its founder, Mark Birley, to whom she was married when the club opened.
Jemima, a friend of Princess Diana, is divorced from Pakistani cricket star turned politician Imran Khan.
Zac is an environmentalist who became an MP in the May 2010 general election.
Ben unites several notable families through his wife, Kate Emma Rothschild. Her father is a Rothschild, and her mother is a member of the Guinness brewing family.
Goldsmith also had two children with his French lover Laure Boulay de la Meurthe.
A happy ending?
In a biography of Goldsmith published a year after his death, authors Chris Hutchins and Dominic Midgley note that Sir James' estate was distributed with little if any challenge or contention.
His wife Annabel retained Ormeley Lodge, the family home near Richmond Park in southwest London, and the property in Spain.
His French castle went to Laure Boulay de la Meurthe, who also inherited a share in his Paris mansion with Ginette, his second wife.
Cuixmala, his home in Mexico, was shared by his entire family.
With this smooth Goldsmith succession, his wife Annabel did well. She was not so lucky after the death of her first husband, Mark Birley (full story)
" . . . "
And certainly Mr. Pontifex’s success was exceedingly rapid. Only a few years after he had become a partner his uncle and aunt both died within a few months of one another. It was then found that they had made him their heir. He was thus not only sole partner in the business, but found himself with a fortune of some £30,000 into the bargain, and this was a large sum in those days. ...As he frequently said, he valued it not for its own sake, but only as a means of providing for his dear children.
Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1884).
