How Jeremy Clarkson’s family lost their eye watering fortune

was born into a regular working class household. His mother worked as a teacher and father, a travelling salesman. While they subsequently launched a business and became comfortable, just a couple of generations earlier his family were exceedingly wealthy having made a fortune in glassware.

One of his ancestors even owned one of the first cars, which is the equivalent of owning a private jet today. Despite this, by the time star Jeremy came along that money had disappeared in a rags to riches and back to rags tale.

Years later in 2004 Jeremy went in search of answers about what happened when he appeared on the first series of genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? One of the first things he asked about his family was: “What happened to the money?”

The Grand Tour presenter knew one of his ancestors on his mother’s side had invented the Kilner jar, a rubber-sealed screw-topped receptacle, still used today by cooks for vacuum-sealing food such as homemade jams and preserves.

It transpired that this was John Kilner, Jeremy’s great-great-great-great grandfather, who was born in 1792. Having been an employee in a glassworks factory he set up a business with friends before breaking out on his own. By 1894, the family business was manufacturing more than 3,000 different varieties of bottles and jars and owned warehouses in London.

They were hugely prosperous. The fact there were no death duties in the Victorian era benefitted them. When John died in 1857 the firm and wealth was passed intact to John’s four sons, George, William, John and Caleb – who was Jeremy’s 3x great grandfather.

The business continued to thrive with Caleb overseeing it and in 1862, they won a medal at the Great Exhibition. However in 1871 they hit a speed bump when they faced a court case brought by the estate of the Earl of Scarborough against them.

It was argued that smoke from the Thornhill Les factory was polluting land around the factory. The judge ruled against the Kilners arguing that, “no man has the right to interfere with the supply of pure air”.

Although it was ruled they install six gas furnaces at a huge cost of £1,500 each, this did not lead to the ruination of the family, who absorbed the cost.

Sadly for the family small UK firms faced fierce competition from cheap imports in the early 20th century and some firms had to merge to survive. This led to United Glass Bottle, which was a conglomeration of six glassware firms who bought the Kilner patents when the firm fell into decline.

During the show Jeremy found a copy of Caleb’s will in the attic of his 2x great grandfather’s former home, Ivanhoe Lodge and it showed he left the equivalent of millions of pounds, most of which went to his son, George, and son-in-law, Harry Smethurst, who was married to Jeremy’s great-grandmother Annie Kilner. Despite his inheritance George mortgaged the family home in 1931 before the family business finally closed in 1937.

Meanwhile Harry, who was an architect, and Annie appear to have frittered much of their fortune as they were prone to opulent displays of wealth. They are rumoured to have spent some of the inheritance on a car around 1901. Although some money remained, when Annie died she disinherited her daughter (Jeremy’s grandmother) Gwendoline.

It transpired the winding up of the factory caused a family rift over how the proceeds of the closure should be divided. Gwendoline seemingly sided with her cousin, causing estrangement from her parents. The money instead passed to her brother, Tom – Jeremy’s great uncle.

Despite discovering that he missed out on inheriting a fortune Jeremy took solace inthe fact that the Kilner name lives on as the jars are still being manufactured and said he was proud to have ancestors who were integral to the “patchwork quilt of ingenuity” that made the industrial revolution.