I am very pleased to take this opportunity to welcome the Chester Beatty Library Bill, 1985. The purpose of the Bill, as has been stated by the Minister, is to enable the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland to carry out work for the maintenance, repair, upkeep, renovation and improvement of the Chester Beatty Library.
I think it is particularly heartening at a time of deep economic recession that it is possible to devote some of the scarce public funds available to the arts and in particular to this special library which is so dear to the hearts of Irish people in general, Dubliners I suspect in particular and indeed to visitors who come to our shores. It gives us too an opportunity in this House of the Oireachtas to dwell on the life and works of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty and of his library which he bequeathed to the Irish people on his death in 1968. The bringing together in Shrewsbury Road of this man's lifetime collection in the library which he built has enabled us to view in one place the history of civilisation from 2,700 BC to the present century and in geographical provenance this collection encircles the globe from Ireland here on the fringes of Western Europe to Sumatra and Japan and I would like your indulgence, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, to speak about Sir Alfred Chester Beatty and how this whole collection came about, the collection which we here today can enjoy and derive so much pleasure from.
Sir Alfred Chester Beatty was born in New York on 7 February 1875 and he was the youngest of three sons of John Cuming Beatty and his wife, Hetty Bull. His mother was of old English colonial stock and his father's ancestry was Irish. Chester Beatty's paternal grandfather, Robert Beatty, was born in 1789 and died in 1850. He was from Armagh city. His paternal grandmother, Catherine Louisa Armstrong, was born in 1813 and died in 1891. She was from Mountrath in Country Laois. He was named after a distant relative, the Reverend Alfred Chester but since he disliked the name Alfred he was always known as Chester and gave his signature as A. Chester Beatty. So even at that early stage he was a person of strong views and decided tastes which would be reflected in his collection at a later stage.
Sadly Chester Beatty did not have his memoirs published but they do exist in a very brief and unpublished form and in them he tells us that the Reverend Alfred Chester, and I quote: "had a mania for collecting minerals, curios, tiny chips of rock from the Pyramids, bits of wood supposed to come from Captain Cook's ship and samples of lead and copper ore ...and probably this fired my enthusiasm and of course, I was the usual collector of postage stamps like all the other boys at that time and the boys of today".
I suppose it is true to say that from very small beginnings great collections can be amassed and those of us who are parents I think should temper whatever urge we might have to disregard the precious treasures that are from time to time shoved under our noses or which we perhaps fall over as we go around our homes.
While he was a pupil at Westminister School, Dobb's Ferry, near the Hudson River he enjoyed searching for mineral samples on the building site where a series of tunnels was being driven to carry water to the big Cruton Aqueduct in New York. A friend of his parents, John C.F. Randolph, a mining engineer, encouraged the young boy to pursue his interest. Mr. Randolph was a graduate of Columbia University and Chester Beatty sat the entrance examination there on leaving school in 1893. However he did not enter Columbia University directly. He decided to accompany his friend and next-door-neighbour, Edward K. Mills, who was going there to study civil engineering at Princeton. Chester Beatty always remembered this year with affection but as Princeton had no course in mine engineering at that time, he left to enrol at Columbia University School of Mines. His academic excellence soon became clear and in 1898 he received his degree of Engineer of Mines with an average 91 per cent in his final examination.
Though his family was quite well-to-do — his father was a banker and stockbroker — Beatty refused an allowance from his parents and headed west to Denver, Colorado with 200 dollars in his pocket and a one-way train ticket. He tried to reassure his mother, who had heard many tales of the wild west, by showing her a letter of introduction from Mr. Randolph which he thought would guarantee him a job. However, when he arrived in Denver he was disappointed to find that no job awaited him. The only work available was that of "mucker" or labourer in a mine shovelling rock. Beatty quickly accepted this position from Mr. T.A. Rickard, later to be a leading mining historian and one of the founders of mining journalism, and began his career shovelling rock at the Kekionga Gold Mine in Boulder County, Colorado, receiving 25 cents an hour for a 10-hour day. During the next few years he gained valuable practical experience as he worked his way from "mucker" to foreman, supervisor to mine manager, mine owner to millionaire.
I feel, as I relate this to you, that the whole story is intensely inspiring. I think the quality and the calibre of the man comes through right from the earliest days and of course we all know that in those days and indeed now mining life was rough and dangerous but hard work and courage paid off handsomely. Property was won by staking one's claim and profit was seen as just reward for enterprise. There was, of course, no income tax. Beatty often travelled on horseback or by Wells Fargo stagecoach and always carried six-guns at his side and a Colt revolver tucked into his boot. The mining engineer was constantly watching out for mines which had been "salted" in an effort to dupe the examiner. However, a good mine was worth a fortune to the exploration companies and the engineer learned that mistakes were unacceptable.
Beatty's reputation grew quickly and he soon came to the attention of John Hays Hammond, the foremost mining engineer of the time. Hammond recounts in his autobiography that Beatty eagerly agreed to be his assistant and told him: "I still have beer tastes though I hope to get to champagne some day." Success came very swiftly indeed when in 1903 Hammond became chief engineer with the Guggenheim Exploration Company and Beatty was appointed his assistant chief engineer. This important position secured Beatty a salary of $20,000 with lucrative investment possibilities and gave him the opportunity to travel throughout the United States of America, Mexico and Canada. In 1905, he negotiated a deal with King Leopold II of the Belgians on behalf of the Guggenheim Exploration Company, a contract securing the mineral rights of a huge area of the then Congo Free State.
In 1908, however, Beatty decided not to renew his five-year contract with the Guggenheims, even though they offered him Hammonds's job and asked him to name his salary. Instead he chose to open an office in New York at 71 Broadway under the title of "A. Chester Beatty, Consulting Mining Engineer". It took courage to refuse the Guggenheims' offer. Nevertheless, it was more than likely that Beatty would succeed as an independent mining engineer as he had the necessary expertise, contacts and enterprise at that stage. He then began to travel widely and his office business expanded with the help of a group of loyal assistant and associates, some of whom were to remain with him for 50 years. This is another indication of the calibre and quality and the personality of this man that he could attract that type of dedicated loyal support from his associates.
One of these men who was so loyal to Chester Beatty was Harold A. Titcomb, who was his best friend and classmate at Columbia University School of Mines. They went on many mine examinations together and Beatty loved to describe their adventures in Mexico as they tried to cope with snakes, bandits and the sweltering heat. When Titcomb opened an office in London, Beatty decided to spend part of the year there also. Soon he realised that London was an ideal centre for mining companies as it was the focus of the vast British Commonwealth. While in London, he became acquainted with Herbert Hoover, later to be the 31st President of the United States of America. Together they developed mines in Burma and Russia.
In 1911 Beatty's young wife, Grace Madeleine Rickard, whom he had married in 1900, died of typhoid fever, leaving him with two young children — a daughter Ninette, aged ten, and a son, Alfred Chester, Junior, aged four. His own health was impaired after years in the mines and he suffered from silicosis. He was shocked to have an application for life insurance refused because he was considered unlikely to live more than a few years.
Already at that stage a millionaire, he decided to leave the busy world of mining in the United States and in May 1912 he bought the magnificent Baroda House at 24 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, the former residence of the Maharajah of the Province of Baroda in India. He remarried the following year to Edith Dunn of New York and they settled in London. In 1914, they visited Egypt where they were introduced to the world of the East. Here they bought some beautiful Korans in the Bazaars. The dry climate so attracted Chester Beatty that he bought a house near Cairo where he spent many winters over the following 25 years. I suspect that from that time onwards there developed his enormous love of Islamic culture and tradition, particularly when he began his collection of Korans, which are a feature of the collection in the Chester Beatty Library.
His period in Egypt enabled him to recuperate somewhat from his illnesses. His interest in the potential of the mining industry encouraged him to establish his own mining company to be called Selection Trust. The company was launched in December 1914 with a total capital of £50,000, though the Great War of 1914-1918 delayed the expansion of the enterprise.
Unfortunately, Beatty became ill again in 1917, suffering from a near-fatal attack of pneumonia and Spanish influenza. His doctors advised him to go to a warm climate to recover and so, despite the Great War, he decided to take a world health cruise. Accompanied by his wife and daughter he spent four months in Japan and travelled to China. He had long been fascinated by certain oriental art objects and by 1914 he owned the superb collection of Chinese snuff bottles. His interest in art was undoubtedly inspired by his boyhood fascination with the beauty of rock samples and thus he could admire snuff bottles made from semi-precious stones. One can determine a gradual sophistication in Beatty's artistic taste, as his interest in Chinese snuff bottles, Japanese inro and netsuke and oriental rugs encouraged him to visit the East. Beatty regarded the East as including all places from Moorish Spain to the north of Africa, all the way to Japan and Indonesia. His travels in Egypt and the Far East fuelled his interest and he returned from every trip with beautiful examples of oriental craftmanship. He began to organise his art collection in a similar manner to the organisation of his mining activities; the subject was vetted by experts, examined for forgery, a price given, only the highest quality accepted and the final decision rested with Beatty himself. He was supported by his wife Edith, a remarkable lady whose many interests included Western illuminated manuscripts, antique furniture, post-mid-19th century European painting, especially French Impressionists and, oddly enough, thoroughbred racehorses, which is out of tandem with the other items that I have mentioned, but requiring the same discernment and eye and taste which obviously both husband and wife developed together and which led to their mutual enjoyment.
