David Benson, modest and respected City banker and accomplished artist – obituary
David Benson, who has died aged 85, was a respected City banker in his family firm of Kleinwort Benson, and a gifted watercolour artist.
As the son of Sir Rex Benson, a former soldier-diplomatist who was one of the grandest and most gregarious City figures of the mid-20th century, David had much to live up to. Finding his own path as a corporate finance professional who never sought the limelight but whose advice was well trusted by clients and colleagues, he rose to be vice-chairman of Kleinwort Benson (under the chairmanship of David Peake, who had married into the Kleinwort family) during a phase of trading difficulties and internal tensions from 1989 to 1992.
In a bank which prided itself on quiet teamwork – and which in the 1980s took leading roles in deals ranging from the ground-breaking privatisation sale of British Telecom shares to the battle between Mohamed Al-Fayed and Lonrho for ownership of Harrods – Benson was, according to one colleague, “a more significant member of the firm than he was given credit for, an exceptional judge of good people and good business”.
Quaker descendants of Westmoreland yeoman farmers, the Benson family had prospered as merchants in transatlantic trade from Liverpool in the late 18th century. David’s great-grandfather Robert established himself in London in 1852; his grandfather, also Robert but known as Robin, was a pioneer of railway finance and investment trusts, as well as a noted collector of Renaissance art.
Born on February 26 1938, David Holford Benson was the second son of Rex Benson and his American wife Lesley, née Foster, daughter of a Chicago banker, granddaughter of a governor of Wyoming and former second wife of Condé Nast, the publisher of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.
Part of David’s childhood was spent in Washington, where from 1941 Rex was military attaché at the British embassy under Lord Halifax – with a brief to persuade America to enter the war on the allied side. Already well connected over there, noted his biographer, “wherever [Rex] went he knew people, but he always knew more by the time he left.”
David was educated at Eton, where he learnt to paint under Wilfrid Blunt, brother of Anthony, the art historian and Soviet spy, and went on to study at Madrid University and the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. He began his working life with the Shell oil company, serving for two years in Singapore.
Sir Rex, meanwhile, retired as chairman of what was then Robert Benson Lonsdale in 1959 and from its board two years later, having steered a merger with the issuing house of Kleinwort Sons & Co to form Kleinwort Benson, where David arrived in 1963.
In 1970 David Benson was dispatched, with a senior colleague, to open the firm’s first New York office in a dingy two-room suite on 42nd St in Manhattan. “It will be just the two of you… Recruit more people and get the business going,” were their only instructions – but as the firm’s historian noted, “David, being Rex’s son, has a marvellous entrée into America” and he was in due course promoted to president of Kleinwort Benson Inc.
Typical of even longer-standing links was a relationship with the Illinois Central railroad, for which Bensons had raised money in the 1880s and Kleinwort Benson would do so in 1981, David remarking that it was nice to be able to help again.
He remained a non-executive director of Kleinwort Benson until 1998, after its ultimately unhappy takeover by Dresdner of Germany, and continued to chair its pension fund. From 2002 he was an adviser to the private office of the Fleming banking family, to whom the Bensons had also been close since the 1880s. His numerous other board appointments included British Gas and its exploration arm BG.
He was also chairman of the Charities Official Investment Fund which looks after the reserves of many smaller charities; chairman of the trustees of the Edward James Foundation which provides arts education at West Dean in Sussex, and of the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation; and a trustee of the UK Historic Building Preservation Trust.
As a dedicated lifelong painter, Benson specialised in sunlit landscapes and architectural subjects, including views of Bussento, the lovely house built by his parents on the Amalfi coast of Italy. Sales proceeds from his exhibitions invariably went to charity. One collector recalled Benson offering (unsuccessfully) to buy back a picture of a more exotic setting “because he liked the way he had handled the elephants”. He was especially proud to be an honorary member of the Royal Watercolour Society.
David Benson married, in 1964, Lady Elizabeth Charteris, daughter of the 12th Earl of Wemyss and March; she survives him with their son and two daughters.
David Benson, born February 26 1938, died October 17 2023
