Remembering Richard Dunhill

Richard Dunhill was the grandson of Dunhill founder Alfred Dunhill and among the last family members to spend many years in the company's management. According to industry sources, he died on 26 August 2016 at the age of eighty-nine. The years he spent in management coincide with the period in which the company transformed from a small tobacconist's shop into a multinational luxury-goods group.

Years at the Company

According to accounts, Richard Dunhill joined the company in 1948, and his tenure lasted a total of sixty-eight years; it is stated that he spent twenty-eight of those years as a director and twenty-seven as chairman of the board. Alfred Dunhill Ltd., which grew out of a tobacconist's shop opened on Duke Street in London in 1907, evolved over the twentieth century into a luxury-goods company spanning lighters, leather goods, watches, and ready-to-wear, eventually passing into the ownership of the Switzerland-based Richemont group. Within this large structure, the pipe division occupied a place small in scale but decisive in symbolism. The family-based management tradition established by figures such as Alfred's brother Herbert Edward Dunhill gave way, during Richard's era, to a multinational management arrangement.

Awards, Institutions, and Charitable Work

The "Pipe Smoker of the Year" title, awarded annually by the British Pipesmokers' Council, was given to Richard Dunhill in 2002. Begun in 1964, this selection came to an end in 2004 out of concern that it would run afoul of regulations banning tobacco promotion; Dunhill thus remained among the final names on the list. According to records, Richard Dunhill was a past master of the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders — a London livery company founded by royal charter in 1619 and re-established under its current name in 1954 — and an honorary member of the International Academy of the Pipe. His name is also associated with the Alfred Dunhill Links Foundation, which is said to have directed funds toward causes such as prostate cancer research; the golf tournament sharing the foundation's name has been held since 2001 at the St Andrews, Carnoustie, and Kingsbarns courses in Scotland. He is also said to have originated the idea for the Fellowship of the White Spot, a free newsletter devoted to the brand's history.

Dispersal of the Collection

The family's interest in pipe history was not limited to commerce: in the 1920s Alfred Dunhill assembled a collection of antique pipes and early printed works on tobacco, and The Pipe Book (1924), a product of the same years, was the written expression of this interest. According to records, on 12 May 2004, a sale at Christie's South Kensington dispersed the entire collection apart from what remained in the company archive. Such wholesale sales make it difficult to trace the provenance of pieces within antique pipe collecting circles; individual pieces from the Dunhill collection are usually recognized again years later mainly through a printed record.