This article is more than 24 years oldObituaryViscount Portman
This article is more than 24 years oldThe 75th-richest Briton who owned 100 acres north of Oxford StreetThe clarinet-playing ninth Viscount Portman, who has died aged 65 at his Antiguan home, was the 75th-richest Briton, worth £275m from inheriting his family's 100 acres north of London's Oxford Street, first acquired by an ancestor in 1553.
His recent notoriety derived from the disclosure that his father's friend and trusted family solicitor, the late Lord Goodman, had purloined up to £1m from his account, of which Goodman was the sole trustee. A dying Goodman returned £500,000 in 1995, on condition that the settlement be kept secret and its beneficiaries not disclosed until 2006.
Portman inherited Lord Goodman, his father's best friend even before he succeeded his uncle, the eighth Viscount in 1967. By then the family's estate, the second largest in London, had been reduced by the sale of 26 acres to satisfy the £7.5m in death duties - the largest yet levied on the estate of the seventh viscount.
Portman was born in Dorset, the elder son of Michael Portman, younger brother of the eighth Viscount Portman. His father was a Liberal candidate for Dorset North in 1955 after wartime service in the Fleet Air Arm.
Young Edward was educated at Canford School and the Cirencester Agricultural College. He applied these skills first on the Crowood Estate in Wiltshire, previously owned by Sir Oswald Mosley, then on 3,000 acres at Clock Mill in the Wye Valley, where he became joint master of the Golden Valley Foxhounds on the understanding that he did not have to ride a horse.
Viscount Portman was an "absentee landlord" with his home in Antigua. He was married twice, most recently to Penelope Allin, with whom he had four sons. He was first married to Rosemary Farris, by whom he had a daughter and a son, 41-year-old Christopher, who inherits the title. He inherited the estate at 11. The family's wealth is now protected by being vested in a family trust, Portman Settled Estates.
Edward Henry Berkeley Portman, Viscount Portman, landowner, born April 22, 1934; died May 2, 1999.
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