Arthur Jeffress

Albert Jeffress was in the tobacco business and in 1902 helped to form the British American Tobacco (BAT) company, a joint venture between the UK's Imperial Tobacco and The American Tobacco Company.

Albert became a director of the company at its formation and later become Deputy Chairman.

BAT was headquartered in London and Albert moved his family to England so that he could help run the new company.

The Jeffress family lived at Kenton Grange, a 27-acre estate at Kenton, Middlesex.

Arthur was educated at Harrow and Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Arthur Tilden Jeffress (21 November 1905 – 21 September 1961) was an influential gallery owner, collector, and patron of the arts in post-World War II Britain.

Arthur was born in Brentford, Middlesex on 21 November 1905, the second son of Albert and Stella Jeffress of Charlotte, Virginia, U.S.A. His older brother, Joseph Randolph Jeffress, was born in 1900.

In the 1920s and 1930s he was conspicuous mostly as a rich playboy and socialite.

Jeffress was one of the numerous Bright Young People, young bohemian artists, aristocrats, and socialites, during the 1920s and 30s.

In 1925, Albert unexpectedly died while returning from a business trip to China.

He left the majority of his estate to his wife, two sons and his sister, Anita Jeffress Hill of Berkeley, California.

The family continued to live at Kenton Grange until well after the Second World War.

After leaving Cambridge, and before the Second World War, Jeffress's enthusiasm for the arts led him to enter artistic social circles; he was an acquaintance of the Sitwells, playing a role in Osbert and Sacheverell's play "First Class Passengers Only" at the Arts Theatre in 1927.

The Sitwells' artistic salon at their Carlyle Square home regularly hosted eminent writers, artists, critics and patrons; Jeffress thus came into contact with this world.

Jeffress's friend, André Ostier, was at this time running a gallery in Paris; another friend, Henry Clifford, would become head curator of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Jeffress and his brother Randolph were both interested in cars; Randolph, who owned a Bugatti and 1929 Supercharged Alfa Romeo, became an amateur racer.

Jeffress's own interest was mainly in automotive aesthetics, leading to his ownership of first a Kissel, then, aged 28, his first Rolls-Royce, a two-seater 20/25 convertible (GGA29) with coachwork by the Carlton Carriage Company.

He subsequently acquired another 20/25, GAE80 bodied by Thrupp & Maberly.

With the guidance of these artistically-knowledgeable friends, Jeffress began collecting art by the mid-1930s.

At around this time, he bought de Chirico's "The Painter's Family", a Picasso, and a number of other works.

During much of the 1930s, Jeffress's boyfriend was John Deakin, an "acid-tongued... wit", later a photographer of Soho in the 1950s who also influenced Arthur's art collecting.

With the onset of war in Europe, Jeffress became a non-combatant ambulance driver.

His childhood enthusiasm for motor vehicles had led him to become a skilled driver and knowledgeable about vehicle maintenance.

Jeffress put his art collection into storage and closed up his house, offering its use to the military.

This group was famous for its dedication to modernism, the arts, and throwing extravagant parties; on 21 November 1931, Jeffress hosted the last great so-called "Monster” balls, the "Red and White Party". This was held at the west wing of Holford House in Regent's Park. This- considered a grand address- was the home of the famous dancer Maud Allan. Although 250 people were invited, four hundred attended. The party's name was reflected in the request that guests dress only in red and white costumes- these included sailor suits, nun's habits, evening dress, sashes, wigs and gloves. The rooms were extravagantly decorated in red velvet and white silk, and the food and drink consisted of red caviar, lobster, salmon, champagne, wine, and gin. Jeffress greeted his guests attired in a White Angel-skin sailor suit with red trimmings, a ruby necklace, two diamond clips and a spray of white star orchids.

The party continued until dawn, but represented, with the arrival of the depression, the end of the heyday of the Bright Young Things.

In 1940, he applied to join the American Field Service; and in time he was assigned to its British American Ambulance Corps as a driver.

Reporting for duty on 27 January 1941 at the BAAC office in New York, he was assigned to a unit of 24 men; at 34, he was one of the elder members of the unit, the youngest being 19.

His unit was assigned to the Middle East and North African Campaigns after one month of training, shipping out on board the SS Zam Zam for Mombasa, Kenya.

They were to travel overland to Lake Chad, where they would support de Gaulle's Free French Forces.

The voyage to Africa was undertaken alongside US missionaries and their families, a group of French Canadian Catholic Brothers, and a group of tobacco businessmen.

The S.S. Zam Zam, being an Egyptian ship, was neutral in the war, and was taking a "safe" route to avoid more dangerous supply routes; although the US was not at war, the Nazis attacked supply ships heading to Britain.

The ship was to sail down to South America before crossing the Atlantic to Africa.

However, in the early morning of 17 April, the German raider Atlantis opened fire on the Zam Zam, which, critically disabled, began to sink.

With the loss of many lifeboats in the attack, and lack of coordination when abandoning ship, many life boats departed only partially full; most of the BAAC men, including Jeffress, were stranded on the sinking ship.

Bernhard Rogge, captain of the Atlantis, observed the number of women and children in the lifeboats and, concluding that the sinking ship had not been an Allied supply ship, sent out boats to rescue the survivors.

The German sailors gathered the lifeboats and boarded the "Zam Zam", rescuing all remaining passengers and crew.

All passengers and crew members were saved, with only a few injured in the attack.

After a few days of captivity, the Atlantis rendezvoused with another German ship, the Dresden; the captured passengers and crew were transferred to this ship, where conditions were difficult- all the men were confined to a cramped space below deck (108 men in a 50x50 ft space), and food was scarce and poor.

He died in 1961, leaving his art collection to the Tate and Southampton City Art Gallery.