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| - Born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Jacob Cassel, who owned a small bank, Cassel arrived penniless in Liverpool, England in 1869 and found employment with a firm of grain merchants. With an enormous capacity for hard work and a natural business sense, Cassel was soon in Paris working for a bank. The Franco-Prussian War forced him to move to a position in a London bank, as he was born in Prussia.
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abstract
| - Born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Jacob Cassel, who owned a small bank, Cassel arrived penniless in Liverpool, England in 1869 and found employment with a firm of grain merchants. With an enormous capacity for hard work and a natural business sense, Cassel was soon in Paris working for a bank. The Franco-Prussian War forced him to move to a position in a London bank, as he was born in Prussia. He prospered and was soon putting together his own financial deals. His areas of interest were in mining, infrastructure and heavy industry. Turkey was an early area of business ventures, but he soon had large interests in Sweden, the United States, South America, South Africa, and Egypt. One of the wealthiest men of his day, Cassel was a good friend of King Edward VII, prime minister Herbert Asquith and Winston Churchill. In 1878, he married Annette Mary M. Maxwell at Westminster . He became a Roman Catholic at the behest of his wife, Annette, but was always thought of as a Jew. The establishment was shocked to find out that he had converted when he chose to be sworn in to the Privy Council with the Catholic Bible. [1] Cassel had a famous art collection and many beautiful houses. He bred racehorses and owned Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket. His wife Annette died young and with the help of his widowed sister Wilhemina (known as Bobbie) they brought up his daughter and her son and daughter. His only child, Maude Cassel (1879–1911), also died young. He doted on the two granddaughters she left him, especially the eldest, Edwina, who looked after him in his old age. She later married Lord Louis Mountbatten.
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