Alfred Chester Beatty

Alfred Chester Beatty was born into a middle-class family on the site of what is now the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City, on 7 February 1875, as the youngest child to John Cuming Beatty, a banker and stockbroker, and his wife, Hetty (née Bull). He had two brothers, William Gedney Beatty and Robert Chetwood Beatty. He was known to family and friends as A. Chester Beatty, Chester or "Chet".

Beatty graduated from Columbia School of Mines in 1898 with his Master of Engineering degree and his Doctor of Science degree. After graduating, he bought a one-way ticket to Denver, Colorado. His first job in the mines earned him $2 per day as a "mucker", clearing away rocks and soil from mine tunnels. He was quickly promoted to supervisor of the Kektonga Silver Mines.

Beatty joined John Hays Hammond on the management team of the Guggenheim Exploration Company in 1903. His first mentor was T. A. Rickard, a mining engineer. This position soon made him wealthy, and in 1908, when he left the Guggenheims, he was regarded as one of the country's leading mining engineers. He then set up an office on Broadway, Manhattan as an independent mining consultant.

Beatty founded the London-based mining company, Selection Trust, in 1914. World War I delayed the company's expansion, but during the 1920s the business expanded to acquire interest in countries included the USSR, the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) and the Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone. He made a fortune in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) and the Belgian Congo (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo), where he exploited the Copperbelt. He became known as the "King of Copper".

Beatty married his first wife, Grace Madeleine "Ninette" Rickard, the sister-in-law of his mentor T. A. Rickard, in Denver, Colorado, on 18 April 1900. The couple bought a home in East New York, Brooklyn. They had two children together: a daughter, Ninette "Little Ninette" Beatty, was born on 1 January 1901, and a son, Alfred Chester Beatty Jr., was born on 17 October 1907.

On 23 March 1911, his wife died suddenly of typhoid fever in Manhattan, New York City. She was 31. Her funeral service took place at All Angels' Church on 31 March 1911.

Beatty purchased Baroda House in Kensington Palace Gardens in 1912 and moved to London with his two younger children the following year.

Beatty married his second wife, Edith Dunn (formerly Stone), at Kensington Register Office in Kensington in April 1913. His wife was a racehorse owner and breeder, and well-known for her collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modernist paintings, antique French furniture and objet d'art.

Beatty, his wife and his daughter traveled by boat to Japan and China in 1917, while he was recovering from a bout of pneumonia and Spanish influenza.

In 1929, his daughter married Captain Edward Newling, at Westminster Cathedral in St. George Hanover Square, London. They had a daughter together, Anne Quie (née Newling). In 1970, two years after his death, his elder granddaughter married Leslie Clive Annesley Quie in Croydon, Greater London.

In 1933, his son married Elizabeth Pamela Belas, in East Ashford, Kent. They had a daughter together, Sarah Anne Chester Beatty. In 1956, his younger granddaughter married David Greville, 8th Earl of Warwick, heir to the Warwick Castle estate, in Chelsea, London, less than 24 hours after the announcement of their engagement. They had two children together; Guy Greville, 9th Earl of Warwick and Lady Charlotte Anne Fraser (née Greville). His great-grandson had two sons and his great-granddaughter had two daughters. From 1971 to 1973, she was married to the Polish prince and architect, Kasimir Korybut. She was the widow of the racehorse trainer, Harry Thomson Jones, whom she married in 1975.

Beatty is the sitter in eight portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. His son is the sitter in one portrait at the National Portrait Gallery.

In 1937, his son married Enid Groome in Westminster, Middlesex. They later divorced.

On 5 August 1952, his wife died at their home in Kensington Palace Gardens, aged 66.

In 1953, his son married Helen Gertrude Casalis De Pury (née Markowicz) in Brentford, Middlesex.

Beatty received an honorary Legum Doctor degree from the National University of Ireland.