Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol

Victor Frederick Cochrane Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol (6 October 1915 – 10 March 1985), was a British aristocrat, hereditary peer and businessman. He was a member of the House of Lords, Chancellor of the International Monarchist League, and an active businessman who later became a tax exile in Monaco.

Victor Hervey was the only son of Herbert Hervey, 5th Marquess of Bristol. He acquired a notorious reputation as a playboy in the 1930s. He was briefly imprisoned for jewellery theft in 1939. He inherited the Marquessate on his father's death in 1960, and acquired a large fortune through this and his business dealings. He was married three times and is the father of John Hervey, 7th Marquess of Bristol, Frederick Hervey, 8th Marquess of Bristol, Lord Nicholas Hervey, Lady Victoria Hervey, and Lady Isabella Hervey. He spent his final years in Monaco to avoid income tax with his third wife and three youngest children.

Early life Victor Hervey was born on 6 October 1915, the only son of Lord Herbert Hervey, later 5th Marquess of Bristol, and Lady Jean Cochrane, a daughter of Douglas Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald, and Winifred, Countess of Dundonald. His godmother was Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain.

He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but was asked to leave the latter, because of bad temperament. who, whilst drunk, and as a dare, assaulted and robbed a jeweller from Cartier, as a result of which two of them (but not Hervey) were sentenced to being flogged with the cat o' nine tails. Hervey seems not to have actually taken a direct part in that robbery himself. It has been said that he is remembered mainly for having taken part in a jewel robbery which he did not in fact commit, though he was convicted of a similar offence, in the same decade and in the same part of London (Mayfair).

In July 1939, Hervey was arrested and charged with stealing jewellery, rings and a mink fur coat with a total value of £2,500 from a premises in Queen Street, Mayfair, and £2,860 of jewellery from a property on Park Lane. He was refused bail, and imprisoned for three years. The recorder of the court observed: "The way of the amateur criminal is hard. But the way of the professional is disastrous". His father, who had led a respectable life, as had been the case for all the men of the Hervey family since the Victorian era, broke down in tears on hearing the sentence.

Business dealings Prior to receiving his trust income, Victor Hervey declared bankruptcy in 1937 with debts of £123,955, (approximately £ today). He had been selling guns during the Spanish Civil War to both sides, hoping to receive £30,000 as a bribe, which failed and led to the debts.

He was sometime President of the National Yacht Harbour Association, a member of the House of Lords Yacht Club, the Hurlingham Club, and the East Hill Club, Nassau, Bahamas. and one daughter, Lady Anne Hervey (stillborn, 26 February 1965). Both marriages failed because of Victor's infidelity; Lady Juliet subsequently saying "If you want to screw hookers when you are married, you make damn sure you are not caught". They had a son, Frederick Hervey, 8th Marquess of Bristol (born 1979), and two daughters: Lady Victoria Hervey (born 1976) and Lady Isabella Hervey (born 1982), who married Christophe de Pauw. Although living in Monte Carlo in an apartment, he continued to employ a butler and a nanny.

Bristol was vice-president of the UK Taxpayers Union, was a member of the West India Committee, and was considered an expert on Central American affairs.

He was a member, until his death, of the International Monarchist League, joining its Grand Council in 1964, He was also a long-standing member of the Conservative Monday Club.

The Marquess was a patron of the arts and a collector, an acknowledged authority on the painters Lawrence Alma-Tadema and James Tissot, and "a lover of art and beauty in all its forms". He had acquired a substantial amount of 19th-century artwork at the time of his death.

On 30 August, probate was granted in London for Bristol’s estate in England and Wales, valued at only £7,508. His name was stated as “Most Honourable Marquis Victor Frederick COCHRANE”. which were reburied in the family vault at the parish church of Ickworth, after a memorial service in St Leonard's Church, Horringer, Suffolk.