Ernest Cassel

Infobox Person
name = Ernest Cassel

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caption = painted by Anders Zorn, 1886
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birth_date = birth date|1852|03|03
birth_place = Cologne, Germany
death_date = death date and age|1921|09|21|1852|03|03
death_place = Brook House, Park Lane, London, England
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resting_place = Kensal Green Cemetery, London, England
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known_for = merchant banker and capitalist
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occupation = merchant banker
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Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel GCB GCMG GCVO (3 March 1852 Cologne, Germany – 21 September 1921 Brook House, Park Lane, London, England [GRO Register of Deaths: SEP 1921 1a 414 ST GEO HAN SQ - Ernest J. Cassel, aged 69] ) was a British merchant banker and capitalist.

Born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Jacob Cassel, who owned a small bank, Cassel arrived penniless in Liverpool, England in 1869 and found employment with a firm of grain merchants. With an enormous capacity for hard work and a natural business sense, Cassel was soon in Paris working for a bank. The Franco-Prussian War forced him to move to a position in a London bank, as he was born in Prussia.

He prospered and was soon putting together his own financial deals. His areas of interest were in mining, infrastructure and heavy industry. Turkey was an early area of business ventures, but he soon had large interests in Sweden, the United States, South America, South Africa, and Egypt.

One of the wealthiest men of his day, Cassel was a good friend of King Edward VII as well as of prime minister Herbert Asquith and the young Winston Churchill. In 1878, he married Annette Mary M. Maxwell at Westminster [GRO Register of Marriages: SEP 1878 1a 899 WESTMINSTER - Ernest Joseph Cassel = Annette Mary M. Maxwell] . He became a Roman Catholic at the behest of his wife, Annette, but was always thought of as a Jew. The establishment was shocked to find out on his death that he had converted many years before.

Cassel had a famous art collection and many beautiful houses. He bred racehorses and owned Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket. His wife Annette died young and with the help of his widowed sister Wilhemina (known as Bobbie) they brought up his daughter and her son and daughter. His only child, Maude Cassel (1879–1911), also died young. He doted on the two granddaughters she left him, especially the eldest, Edwina, who looked after him in his old age. She later married Lord Louis Mountbatten.

In 1919 Cassel founded the Cassel Hospital at No. 1 Ham Common, Richmond, which was at the time a rural division of South-West London, England. The hospital is a community for mental patients which provides care for 15 visitors at any one time. It is run by the NHS and housed in its original Victorian building by a staff of over a 100 specialists, it deals with all mental health issues from depression to personality disorders.

Cassel and his wife are buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London, in a large grave in front of the Anglican All Souls' Chapel.

A few months after his death, Cassel's estate was probated at £6,000,000.

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