SHY MILLIONAIRE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20308, 6 January 1936, Page 4

SHY MILLIONAIRE

SEMI-SECRET LIFE

MAN OF BRILLIANT GIFTS

Two years ago Sir John Ellerman, the richest man in Britain, died and left a fortune of £17,000,000 to his 23-year-old son, now Sir John Reeves Ellerman. A month later the new young multi-millionaire was married. He spent his honeymoon in the semisecrecy of a tiny middle-class villa at Eastbourne.

Since then he and his wife have disappeared completely from the public eye. Even those who aid in the direction of his great business know as little about him .is the world at large. This is the strange story told to me by friends and business associates, writes a special correspondent of a London journal. “You will probably never meet a more extraordinary case in all your life,” one of them said. “Sir John is an active man, a man of brilliant gifts, a man of great charm and personality. He directs his business with the closest attention, and with great ability. Yet he is a complete recluse.

“In the whole of the business only two men are permitted to know where he lives. He is abnormally shy and insists with all the power that wealth can give him on complete and absolute privacy of life.” Only Two Know The only two men who communicate directly with him are his god-father, Colonel William Thomas Cox, and Sir John’s private secretary, who moves from office to office in the city. His mother, who lives at the family mansion in South Audley Street, does not know where her son lives. He and his wife have had three houses since they married. Two are in the country. One is in London. The country houses are within 100 miles of London. The London house is in the Vest End. Yet only two people know where these houses are. The West End house is in one of the vast blocks of property acquired by Sir John’s father. Yet, when he took it for his own use he took extraordinary care to conceal his movements, even to the extent of not letting his own agent know who the tenant was to be. Sir John and his wife spend about three months each year in London, and the remainder of the year in the country. Lady Ellerman, who was formreiy Miss Esther de Sola, visits her women friends in town, but they never visit her. They do not know where she lives, “and," one of them said to me, “it is understood that they shall not ask.” Business Associations “But if she writes letters to her friends she must write them without any address,” I said. “Yes, I believe that is what she does do,” was the reply.

Even his wife's relatives are believed to be in ignorance of Sir John’s address. Sir John’s business interests are conducted in a remarkable way through these networks of secrecy. When his business associates receive communications from him they come through his secretary. He goes to his office sometimes once every few weeks, sometimes every day for a week together. When he arrives there are only about half a dozen men vho know him by sight. He walks through the city unrecognised. He never goes to the city restaurants, but stays in the office right through to dinner without any lunch. He does not care much about food, and he never drinks.

One of the heads of his company said to me:

“In spite of his unique way of living as a recluse, Sir John is an astonishingly clever business man. He is really in control of his business. He knows every detail of it, and he has the movements of every ship in his head. Since the death of his father the position of the Ellerman interests has actually improved.” Yet, so far as his friends could tell me, he has never been for a sea voyage in any of his ships. He has always had this over-ruling desire to live in secrecy. His father, in the old days, often did not know where his son was living. Down in the country he reads extensively. His favourite subject is zoology. He thinks deeply.