Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/149

 In the early spring of 1906 he was sent to Wiesbaden on account of heart trouble. By his own wish he was brought home to England, a dying man, and passed away at his country residence, Tewin Water in Hertfordshire, on 16 July. He was buried in the churchyard there.

Beit, who was unmarried, was survived by his mother, two sisters, and his younger brother Otto, and while providing liberally for various relatives and friends he left the residue of his fortune to his brother. At the same time his public benefactions, amounting in value to 2,000,000l., were impressive alike by their generosity to England and Germany, and by their breadth of view. To the Imperial College of Technology, London, was allotted 50,000l. in cash and De Beers shares, valued at the testator's death at 84,8432. 15s. To Rhodesia, for purposes of education and charity, 200,0002. was bequeathed to be administered by trustees. King Edward's Hospital Fund and the trustees of Guy's Hospital were left 20,000l. each. Rhodes University at Grahamstown received 25,000l., Rhodes Memorial Fund 10,000l., and the Union Jack Club, London, 10,000l. Funds for benefactions in the Transvaal, in Kimberley, and the Cape Colony were also established. Two sums of 20,000l. were left to his executors for distribution to the charities of London and Hamburg respectively. Finally 1,200,000l. passed to trustees for the extension of railway and telegraph communication in South Africa, with a view to forwarding the enterprise known as the Cape to Cairo railway. With admirable sagacity Beit made his public bequests elastic. Thus, while bequeathing an estate at Hamburg as a pleasure-ground to the people of that city, he provided that twenty years later Hamburg might realise the estate and apply the proceeds to such other public objects as might seem desirable. Two of the bequests 200,000l. for a university at Johannesburg and 50,000l. destined for an Institute of Medical Sciences lapsed into the residuary estate owing to the schemes in question being abandoned, but Mr. Otto Beit intimated Ms intention of devoting the 200,0002. to university education in South Africa, and the 50,0002. was made by him the nucleus of a fund of 215,000l., with which he founded in 1909 thirty Alfred fellowships for medical research in memory of the testator. Beit also left at the National Gallery the picture known as 'Lady Cockburn and her Children,' by Sir Joshua Reynolds; and to the Kaiserliche Museum in Berlin another by Sir Joshua, 'Mrs. Boone and her Daughter,' together with his bronze statue 'Hercules' by Pollaiuolo. His large Majolica plate from the service of Isabella d'Este was bequeathed to the Hamburg Museum. A wealthy financier of abnormal intuition and power of memory, combined with German thoroughness of method, Beit had nothing in common with the financial magnate. He was no speculator in any ordinary sense, acquiring property whether on the Rand or elsewhere solely with the object of seriously developing it. He did not gamble, and advice on speculative investments which he always gave reluctantly was far from infallible. Shy and retiring to excess, he was devoid of social ambition, and was little known beyond a small circle of intimates who included men in the high position of Lord Rosebery and Lord Haldane. An active sympathy with every form of suffering and an ardent belief in great causes led him to distribute vast sums of money, but his benefactions were always made privately with rare self-effacement. He was the target through life for much undeserved abuse. The terms of the will give the true measure of his character.

A statue was unveiled at Salisbury, Rhodesia, on 11 May 1911.

 BELL, CHARLES FREDERIC MOBERLY (1847–1911), manager of 'The Times,' born in Alexandria on 2 April 1847, was youngest child of Thomas Bell, of a firm of Egyptian merchants, who was on his mother's side first cousin of George Moberly [q. v.], bishop of Salisbury. Moberly Bell's mother was Hester Louisa, daughter of one David, by a sister of the Miss Williams who accompanied Lady Hester Stanhope [q. v.] on her sojourn in the East. The two Misses Williams were, it is said, wards of William Pitt. Lady Hester was Mrs. Bell's godmother. An accomplished musician and above the average of her tune and sex in general cultivation, Mrs. Bell first married a naval chaplain named Dodd, and by him had a son who became a general in the Indian army. By her second marriage with Thomas Bell she had four children who grew to maturity, but only the youngest displayed striking ability. 