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Home > Biographies & Memoire > Biography and non-fiction prose > True stories: general > True crime > Fortune's Spear: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue Behind the Most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s
Fortune's Spear: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue Behind the Most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s

Fortune's Spear: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue Behind the Most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s


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About the Book

Gerard Lee Bevan was the black sheep of one of London's most respectable banking families. A high-living womanizer and upper-class shyster of almost pantomime proportions, he exploited a glittering range of social connections. After a long run of success in City dealings he perpetrated a massive fraud which ruined both the City Equitable Fire Insurance Company and his stockbroking firm, Ellis & Co. He fled the country and was eventually arrested, tried and jailed.; Based on new research, Martin Vander Weyer tells the story of a fraud of extraordinary proportions, perpetrated by an aristocratic Englishman from a seemingly impeccable background. Exploring exactly how Bevan managed it, he reconstructs in rich Edwardian detail the environment and characters of the day, as well as Bevan's desperate attempt at disguise and flight across Europe.; With resonances in today's financial world, from the 2008 crash to the likes of fraudsters such as Bernard Madoff, Fortune's Spear is a compelling true crime tale and a fascinating glimpse into a bygone financial world.

Table of Contents:
Bevan Family Tree viii; Kenrick/Chamberlain Family Tree x; Sonnet II xiii; Introduction: The Making of a Fraudster 1; Chapter One: A Kensington Wedding; Capital and industry 15; Pillars of Society 18; The Playing Fields of Eton 27; Hollow-ware and Oddwork 33; Chapter Two: On 'Change; The Black Sheep 41; The Junior Partner 46; Bad Examples 52; The Senior Partner 57; Chapter Three: At Home; Upper Grosvenor Street 71; The Veiled Politician 75; City Magnate and Don Juan 83; At Littlecote 86; Chapter Four: The City Equitable; A Wartime Opportunity 93; Lords on the Board 97; Crack Oarsmen 107; A Nine Years' Wonder 111; Chapter Five: The Post-armistice Boom; The Lucky Englishman 117; A Craze for Speculation 122; Eminently Healthy 136; Wily Dundonians 139; Partners and Directors, 1918-22 147; Chapter Six: Boom turns to Bust; Back from Brazil 149; The Twin Bastions 153; A False Prospectus 157; Hand-to-Mouth 161; Chapter Seven: Flight; Ordered Abroad 169; Proofs of Debt 174; 'Parle francais couramment' 179; All is Squared 182; Chapter Eight: Capture; An inspector Calls 193; 'My Poor Wife!' 201; Homeward Bound 208; And Whose the Fault? 211; Chapter Nine: TriaL; At the Guildhall 216; Who was 'Someone?' 233; Window-dressing 238; Muddled Away 242; Chapter Ten: Misfeasance; Mansell in the Dock 249; Wilful Neglect? 255; An Historic Judgment 262; Stung by a Tart 272; Chapter Eleven: Family Matters; The Prison Librarian 279; Decree Absolute 282; The Bogus Major 287; Sheila's Wedding 290; Chapter Twelve: Last Years; What Happened to Hatry? 293; Russet and Asp 298; The PPRS 305; A pPauper's Grave 315; Exile 321; Acknowledgements 323; Bibliography 325; Index 329

About the Author :
Martin Vander Weyer is Business Editor and Any Other Business columnist of The Spectator and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, and other national newspapers. Before becoming a journalist, he was an investment banker in London, Brussels and the Far East. He is the author of Falling Eagle: The Decline of Barclays Bank (2000), and the editor and principal author of Closing Balances: Business Obituaries from the Daily Telegraph (2006).

Review :
A wonderfully vivid biography of the man responsible for one of the great City scandals. The world that Martin Vander Weyer recreates with a novelist's flair and historian's attention to detail may be long gone, but this very human morality tale of high talent and high connection fatally compromised by a flawed character is timeless. --David Kynaston, author of 'City of London: The History'; Exciting stuff ... It is a rattling good yarn and leaves you wondering whether the man had a rotten core from the beginning or whether it was addiction to money and social position which seduced him into crime. It is a cautionary tale. --Martin Jacomb, 'The Spectator'; This well-researched and well-written book is more than the story of a City scandal. It is a fascinating slice of social history and a rumination on fraud and folly. --Allan Massie, 'The Scotsman'; 'Fortune's Spear' is a splendidly rich account of a fraud that both symbolises its own era and prefigures our own. Unlike many financial writers, Vander Weyer writes so clearly that even a financial illiterate like myself can just about grasp what he is getting at. He also has a wonderfully broad frame of cultural reference. --Craig Brown, Book of the Week, 'Daily Mail'


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Product Details
  • ISBN-13: 9781907642326
  • Publisher: Elliott & Thompson Limited
  • Publisher Imprint: Elliott & Thompson Limited
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1907642323
  • Publisher Date: 15 Nov 2011
  • Binding: Digital (delivered electronically)
  • Sub Title: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue Behind the Most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s


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