Edward Cecil Guinness

Irish aristocrat and brewer

• Born: November 10, 1847
• Birthplace: Clontarf, Ireland
• Died: October 7, 1927
• Place of death: London, England

During Guinness’s lifetime, his eponymous family brewery was the largest in Ireland and among the largest in the world. Guinness donated some of his almost £11 million fortune to the working poor, the arts, hospitals, Trinity College Dublin, and scientific research about infectious diseases and brewing techniques.

Sources of wealth: Manufacturing; sale of products

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; charity; educational institution; medical institution

Early Life

The Guinness family had been brewers in Ireland for three generations when Edward Cecil Guinness (GIHN-ehs) was born in 1847. According to family lore, the recipe for the stout that made the Guinness fortune was actually the brainchild of Arthur Price, archbishop of Cashel, Ireland. When Price died in 1752, he gave £100 to his servant, Richard Guinness, and to Guinness’s son Arthur. In 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a lease on an unused brewery in Dublin and began brewing porter and ale. Arthur’s grandson, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (1798-1868), inherited the brewery upon the death of his father, Arthur Guinness II, in 1855. Benjamin was the father of Edward Cecil and three other children.

In 1855, Benjamin bought Ashford Castle in County Mayo, which he expanded with a second house on the site when Edward was seven years old. At the age of fifteen, Edward joined the brewery management team. Upon his father’s death, he and his brother Arthur became joint owners of the brewery until Edward bought Arthur’s share after Arthur became the first Baron Ardilaun. In 1873, Edward married a cousin, Adelaide Maria Guinness (1844-1916), who was accomplished in social circles. The couple, who had the most profitable brewery business in Ireland, lived on £150,000 a year while raising three sons, Rupert, Ernest, and Walter.

In 1876, Edward began serving in political positions that were incumbent upon one of his rank, wealth, and social standing. He initially was the sheriff of Dublin and became high sheriff of the city in 1885. In 1886, he was given his first honorary law degree from Trinity College Dublin, and in 1891 he received the same degree from the University of Aberdeen.

First Ventures

In 1876, Guinness increased the size of his brewery, adding another sixty-four acres, and he extended the brewery’s product line with three types of stout—two that were sold only in Ireland and another that was an international export. In 1886, the brewery was incorporated as Arthur Guinness Son & Co. Ltd. and began trading its stock on the London Stock Exchange. While he assumed various management positions over the years, Guinness always kept his finger on the pulse of the business, contributing to and being consulted about all aspects of strategic planning and marketing. In the later years of the nineteenth century, the brewery produced more than one million barrels and was valued at almost £500,000. One of Guinness’s most successful and profitable business strategies was his decision not to own taverns, which would have served as the primary sites for sale of his beers. Instead of buying taverns, he invested the brewery’s profits in research aimed at improving the quality and manufacture of his beers.

Mature Wealth

As industrialists and politicians, the Guinness family has always been committed to philanthropic and charitable works to improve their communities. Following the example of his father, Edward financed construction of housing for working people in urban areas of Ireland through his Guinness Trust in 1890 and the Iveagh Trust in 1900, in one decade spending about a £500,000 for these homes. He used £250,000 of his personal funds for the clearance of Dublin’s notorious Bull Alley, replacing derelict buildings with a market and the Iveagh Play Center.

Guinness, whose business continued to profit despite the British government’s efforts to raise taxes, diversified his holdings and increased his income by purchasing properties in Great Britain and the United States. In 1894, Guinness bought his fourth home, Elveden Hall, located in the west of Suffolk, England, and turned it into a twenty-three-thousand-acre shooting estate. Throughout the 1890’s, his financial acumen enabled the brewery to outstrip its Irish and international rivals by producing limited, high-quality products, conducting ongoing research into beer making, and maintaining sound business practices. In 1895, he was made a knight of the Order of St. Patrick and a knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

From 1902 until 1927, he again served as chairman of the board of the Guinness brewery. In 1905, Guinness became Viscount Iveagh. The following year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and two years later he was appointed to serve as a chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, from which he earned his two college degrees in 1870 and 1872. During World War I, Guinness’s personal income was about £700,000 a year. In 1910, he became a Knight Grand Cross, Royal Victorian Order, and in September, 1919, he was given the titles first earl of Iveagh and viscount of Elveden.

Guinness created large trust funds for his three sons. His brewery earned more than £1 million annually during the first three decades of the twentieth century. After World War I, as the brewery business declined, Guinness worked to retool its product line, improve marketing strategies, and engage in necessary cost cutting while maintaining the beers’ reputations for freshness, taste, and quality.

Legacy

Edward Cecil Guinness was the beneficiary of great wealth, and he kept up the tradition of philanthropy inherited from his father. At his death in 1927, he left an estate valued at between £11 and £13 million. He created trusts for the support of the working poor; he bequeathed Kenwood House, a stately London residence, to the British government, which operates it as a public art museum; and he sponsored research by the Lister Institute aimed at inhibiting the spread of diseases in Dublin. His funding also created the Chadacre Agricultural Institute in west Suffolk in 1921 in order to teach farmers and farmworkers effective agribusiness practices.

Bibliography

Bryant, Julius. Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. A catalog of the holdings of Kenwood, with illustrations and a history of the collection.

Konody, P. G. “British Nation Enriched by Gift of Old Masters.” The New York Times, December 11, 1927, p. X12. Records the immediate, contemporary reaction to the announcement that Guinness had donated the Kenwood estate, including its art collection and furnishings, to the government.

O’Day, Alan. “Guinness Family.” In The Encyclopedia of Ireland, edited by Brain Lalor. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. A brief guide to the family’s history, making mention of Edward Cecil’s role in taking the brewery public in 1886.

Wilson, R. G. “Edward Cecil Guinness, First Earl of Iveagh.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. An important biography of Edward Cecil Guinness.