DIES IN OBSCURITY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20483, 8 December 1934, Page 25 (Supplement)

DIES IN OBSCURITY.

Man Who “ Broke ” His Old Friend. HIS FORTUNE GONE. gIR EDWARD MACKAY* EDGAR, the ones powerful financier who juggled with millions, who was even better known as the man who claimed to have “ smashed " Jimmy White, has died in obscurity at his home in the country, says a writer in the London “ Daily Express.” He was fifty-eight. Jimmy White took poison when he found himself faced with ruin. “ Mike ” Edgar refused to give up the fight when failure faced him. He made one desperate effort after another to stage a “come back”; but he had not really counted in the City for the last ten years. He ended his days broken in health and fortune, and deserted by nearly all his old acquaintances. Fortune in his Thirties. “Mike” Edgar was a power in the world of finance while he was still in his thirties. He was a Canadian who made a fortune by his successful organisation of big hydro-electric enterprises. His forceful personality and persuasive tongue carried him to even greater heights in London. He thought in millions and carried through great deals in cotton and shipbuilding. He spent money* almost as quickly as he made it. His house parties were famous. He spent one fortune on the turf and another on motor-boat racing—he brought the Harmsworth International Trophy back to England from America in 1912, and retained it the following His generosity was almost unbounded. He showered costly gifts on his friends. £BO,OOO Bankruptcy. But his star began to set soon after the war. He dabbled in British industrials, about which he knew little. His fortune melted away. In 1925 he went bankrupt for £BO.OOO, but he struggled successfully against financial eclipse, and his debts were paid in full. Then his son was killed in a motor smash. This affected him so badly that his friends say he was never the same man afterwards. Ilis nerve was gone. His financial position was far from impregnable in 1927 about the time that he claimed to have brought about the downfall of Jimmy White. , I was with him in his flat in Mount Street, Mayfair, when he gave an extraordinary interview to the reporters who came to see him about Jimmy White’s suicide. White and Edgar had both been working together for the dominance of British Controlled Oilfields. They fell out. White plunged heavily. Edgar unloaded his shares. The price fell and fell until White could not meet his obligations. Many cocktails were dispensed in the flat in Mount Street when “ Mike ” Edgar gave the reporters his version of what had happened.

“It was a two-year fight between Jimmy and myself,” he said. “The gamble was Jimmy’s last desperate effort to come back. I and my friends were out to smash the gamble.

“It was rotten fighting an old friend knowing I would smash him, but it w’asn’t my fault. I did not make the rules of the game.” His boastful words put finis to “ Mike ” Edgar’s career.

His Canadian friends afterwards had little time for him. He was a spent force in the world of finance.

Dancing became his hobby when he could no longer afford motor-boats and horses. He became a familiar figure in expensive West End restaurants, and was easily recognised by the high collars that accentuated his lean, puckered face.

His health broke down, and he disappeared from the City and the West End to die in a cottage at Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, from the windows of which he could see the park of the mansion which had once been his country home.