{{Short description|British businessman and Winter Olympian (1929–2019)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}} {{Infobox sportsperson | name = Keith Schellenberg | full_name = Clifford Keith Wain Schellenberg | image = | caption = | nationality = British | sport = Bobsleigh | birth_date = {{birth date|1929|3|13|df=yes}} | birth_place = Middlesbrough, England | death_date = {{death date and age|2019|10|28|1929|3|13|df=yes}} | death_place = Richmond, North Yorkshire, England }}
'''Clifford Keith Wain Schellenberg''' (13 March 1929 – 28 October 2019) was a British businessman and Winter Olympian.<ref name="SportsRef">{{cite Sports-Reference |url=https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/sc/keith-schellenberg-1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417113838/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/sc/keith-schellenberg-1.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 April 2020 |title=Clifford Schellenberg Olympic Results |accessdate=7 April 2018}}</ref><ref>[https://www.olympic.org/keith-schellenberg Olympic.org: KEITH SCHELLENBERG profile]</ref> He was known for his legal disputes related to his ownership of the Scottish island of Eigg.<ref name="Wilson">{{cite web |last=Wilson |first=Jamie |title=Laird who deluded himself with an action for libel |date=20 May 1999 |website=The Guardian |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230717111539/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/20/jamiewilson1 |archive-date=17 July 2023 |url-status=live |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/20/jamiewilson1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Seeking refuge in his roots |website=The Daily Telegraph |date=19 January 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180613115559/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/advice/propertymarket/3297647/Seeking-refuge-in-his-roots.html |archive-date=13 June 2018 |url-status=live |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/advice/propertymarket/3297647/Seeking-refuge-in-his-roots.html}}</ref> He also stood in several general elections as a Liberal Party candidate.
==Personal life and business career== Clifford Keith Wain Schellenberg was the son of Clifford Robertshaw Schellenberg (1898–1971), of Woodlands, The Grove, Marton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire. His distant forebears, who hailed from Wurttemberg in Germany, settled in Britain in the 1860s.<ref name="TimesObit">{{cite news |title=Keith Schellenberg obituary |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/keith-schellenberg-obituary-d56tn7cjq |access-date=17 November 2025 |work=The Times |date=15 November 2019}}</ref> His grandfather, Alan Schellenberg, had founded Cleveland Products in Middlesbrough, which produced glue and ossein gelatin – used, among other things, in the development of reconnaissance photography during World War II, thus enhancing the family's prosperity.<ref name="TimesObit"/> Aside from the Middlesbrough glue factory, Schellenberg's own business interests lay in shipbuilding, livestock feed and agricultural chemicals. From the 1970s until his death he was the owner of Cleveland and Highland Holdings Ltd., a cattle company with dealings in both northern Scotland and Teesside.<ref name="YPobit">{{cite news |last1=Newton |first1=Grace |title=Yorkshire Olympian Keith Schellenberg who once owned his own remote Scottish island has died aged 91 |url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/yorkshire-olympian-keith-schellenberg-who-once-owned-his-own-remote-scottish-island-has-died-aged-91-1748125 |access-date=28 November 2025 |work=The Yorkshire Post |date=2 November 2019}}</ref> He was also the proprietor of a Middlesbrough-based Ford dealership network after purchasing the parent company, Nesham's, in 1961.<ref name="TimesObit"/><ref>{{cite news |title=Keith Schellenberg, businessman and Olympic bobsleigher whose 20-year ownership of the Hebridean Isle of Eigg turned sour – obituary |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/11/05/keith-schellenberg-businessman-olympic-bobsleigher-whose-20/ |access-date=17 November 2025 |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=5 November 2019}}</ref>
Schellenberg attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire.<ref name="TimesObit"/> He became a vegetarian at a young age after witnessing a friend kill a water rat with a catapult.<ref name="TimesObit"/> He had six children<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk-news/ex-laird-charged-with-kerb-crawling-1-628651|title=Ex-laird charged with kerb-crawling|website=www.scotsman.com|language=en|access-date=2019-11-15}}</ref> and was married four times; firstly, in 1957, to Jan Hagenbach, with whom he had two daughters; secondly, in 1964, to Margaret de Hauteville Hamilton, daughter of Robert Hamilton-Udny, 11th Lord Belhaven and Stenton, by whom he had a son and two daughters;<ref>''Burke's Peerage'', 107th edition, 2003, vol. 1, p. 330</ref> thirdly, to garden designer Susan "Suki" Minette Urquhart (1944–2014), daughter of Major-General Robert Urquhart, General officer commanding the 1st Airborne Division at the Battle of Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in 1944; and lastly to Jilly Miller, who survived him. His daughter Serena is a film producer associated with Extinction Rebellion.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Webster |first1=Ben |title=Baseless climate warnings wiped from Extinction Rebellion film |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/baseless-climate-warnings-wiped-from-extinction-rebellion-film-vskns9f6k |work=The Times |date=27 August 2020}}</ref>
Schellenberg previously lived at Davidstone House, near Keith, Aberdeenshire, and at Old Mayen on the River Deveron.<ref>[https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-suki-urquhart-garden-designer-1-3465995 Obituary: Suki Urquhart, garden designer]</ref> He moved to St Nicholas, a house in Richmond, North Yorkshire, in 2000, and restored the property.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Needham |first1=Jenny |title='Rooms' with a view - The romantic country house on the market for £1.65m |url=https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/17003793.rooms-view---romantic-country-house-market-1-65m/ |access-date=30 September 2025 |work=Northern Echo |date=27 October 2018}}</ref> He died in the town in October 2019 at the age of 90.<ref>[https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/eiggs-toad-of-toad-hall-keith-schellenberg-dies-aged-90-dv7mktljz "Eigg’s ‘Toad of Toad Hall’, Keith Schellenberg, dies aged 90"]. ''The Times''. 2 November 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2023.</ref>
==Lairdship of Eigg== Schellenberg bought the Hebridean island of Eigg in 1975 from its owner Bernard Farnham-Smith for £274,000, outbidding the £200,000 offered by the Highlands and Islands Development Board.<ref name="Barkham">{{cite news |last1=Barkham |first1=Patrick |title=This island is not for sale: how Eigg fought back |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/26/this-island-is-not-for-sale-how-eigg-fought-back |access-date=29 November 2025 |work=The Guardian |date=26 September 2017}}</ref> He saw this as a triumph for free enterprise over state capitalism,<ref name="Banks-Smith">{{cite news |last1=Banks-Smith |first1=Nancy |title=Who'd Own An Island |work=The Guardian |date=12 September 1979 |page=11}}</ref> but his motives were not purely personal: keen to preserve the island's natural state, in the first years of his lairdship he invested in conservation projects, signing an agreement with the Scottish Wildlife Trust in 1978 which gave it the right to manage three nature reserves for 25 years.<ref name="playground">{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Helen |title=Eigg's ex-owner denies using it as 'playground' |work=The Guardian |date=17 April 1999 |page=8}}</ref> Wishing to encourage young families to relocate to Eigg, he made efforts to revitalise the island's economy by encouraging tourism, restoring derelict properties and establishing a daily ferry service to the mainland using his boat, ''Eilean Ban Mora''.<ref name="TimesObit"/><ref name="playboy">{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Helen |title=Libel action over 'untrue playboy jibe' |work=The Guardian |date=16 April 1999 |page=10}}</ref><ref name="Jennings">{{cite news |last1=Jennings |first1=Paul |title=This Man is an Island |work=Sunday Telegraph |date=22 April 1979 |page=79}}</ref> By 1979, the island's population was said to have doubled from 39 in 1974 to 82, including 21 children.<ref name="Barkham"/><ref name="Jennings"/><ref name="fairest">{{cite news |last1=Hetherington |first1=Peter |title=Rich man's playground fear for 'fairest isle' |work=The Guardian |date=18 May 1992 |page=5}}</ref>
However, although Schellenberg was genuine in his desire to improve the island's welfare, his activities were often autocratic and somewhat Luddite in nature, dedicated to preserving what he saw as an isolated and unspoiled idyll. As he admitted in 1988: {{blockquote|I hate modern things... Fax machines and helicopters have no use on Eigg. I drive a 1920 estate car and am proud that we hardly have electric lights. They might work in four rooms, but we use oil lamps for the rest.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Duncan |first1=Andrew |title=At last, a bit of peace and quiet |work=The Times |date=9 July 1988 |page=15}}</ref>}}
His aversion to the modern world extended to elements of the past, as demonstrated by his decision to ban shooting and hunting (he later described conserving wildlife as "the most important of his objectives").<ref name="playground"/> All of this rankled with many on the island, who criticised Schellenberg for letting his sense of ''noblesse oblige'' curdle into excessive paternalism and neo-feudalism. Although other inhabitants remained supportive of his efforts,<ref name="fairest"/> as early as 1979 a BBC television programme, ''Who'd Own an Island'', chronicled the whispering unease that had begun to emerge within the community over Schellenberg's obstructive behaviour and his open disregard for their concerns.<ref name="Banks-Smith"/> Over the next 15 years, islanders complained of being unable to acquire long-term leases to their properties and were frequently prevented from improving them.<ref name="Barkham"/> Others found themselves in precarious employment or out of work entirely as several of Schellenberg's enterprises, such as a "crafts complex", floundered and were eventually abandoned after failing to turn a profit.<ref name="Barkham"/><ref name="Clouston">{{cite news |last1=Clouston |first1=Erlend |title=Oh laird, what a rotten Eigg |work=The Guardian |date=22 January 1994 |page=23}}</ref>
Having been left short of capital following a costly divorce from his second wife, Schellenberg was forced by her (through the courts) to sell the island in 1992. A heritage trust had earlier been established to launch a buyout, backed by three-quarters of Eigg's population,<ref name="fairest"/> but it failed to raise the necessary funds in time as Cleveland and Highland Holdings Ltd. – owned by Schellenberg, who had never wanted to sell in the first place – purchased the island for £1 million.<ref>{{cite news |title=Island sold for £1m |work=The Times |date=2 July 1992 |page=2}}</ref> By now the press had started to pay closer attention, and a flurry of lurid news reports soon followed documenting the behaviour of a laird who started bonfires atop An Sgùrr and held ostentatious parties and games for his rich friends. Matters came to a head in January 1994 when two sheds on Eigg pier were set ablaze by persons unknown, destroying canoes, dinghies and, crucially, Schellenberg's 1927 ten-seater Mark I Rolls-Royce Phantom.<ref name="Wilson"/><ref name="Clouston"/> Later blaming "barmy revolutionaries", "Reds" and "hippies" for his downfall – whom he espied among the incomers to the island, not the natives – he sold Eigg once more, this time for £1.5 million, to a "fire-worshipping" German artist named Marlin Eckhard Maruma, whose bankruptcy soon afterwards finally allowed the island's heritage trust to buy it for the same price in 1997.<ref name="TimesObit"/><ref name="Barkham"/>
===Libel action=== In 1999, Schellenberg took ''The Guardian'' and ''The Sunday Times'' newspapers to the High Court of Justice over their coverage of the whole affair, taking particular umbrage at a ''Guardian'' article headed 'Lairds of Misrule', which he alleged falsely portrayed him as a "playboy" who left behind a "legacy of ruin and disintegration".<ref name="playground"/><ref name="playboy"/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Nicoll |first1=Ruaridh |title=Lairds of Misrule |work=The Guardian |date=31 July 1996 |page=A2}}</ref><ref name="Middap">{{cite news |last1=Middap |first1=Christine |title=Ex-laird of Eigg drops libel case |work=The Times |date=20 May 1999 |page=2}}</ref> During cross-examination by Nicholas Stadlen QC, Schellenberg had to deny dressing up as a Nazi for a spoof Christmas card but admitted sending another card to tenants which implied that they were to be evicted from their homes.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Helen |title=Eigg owner denies dressing as Nazi |work=The Guardian |date=23 April 1999 |page=6}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Helen |title=Ex-Eigg owner's bailiffs 'joke' |work=The Guardian |date=24 April 1999 |page=6}}</ref> The prosecution also brought evidence from islanders describing their squalid living conditions; one witness memorably recalled having to drown rats in her sink.<ref name="Wilson"/> An employee at the housing charity Shelter, who had conducted a survey of properties on the island in 1986, informed the court that conditions there were the worst he had ever seen.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Helen |title=Wrack and ruin' of Eigg properties |work=The Guardian |date=12 May 1999 |page=5}}</ref> Although there was also testimony in favour of Schellenberg,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Helen |title=Former Eigg owner 'kind to islanders' |work=The Guardian |date=1 May 1999 |page=11}}</ref> he eventually abandoned his libel action and agreed to pay £300,000 in costs, protesting that a combination of rising total costs and the length of court proceedings had forced him to admit defeat.<ref name="Middap"/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=Jamie |last2=Quinn |first2=Sue |title=Millionaire's libel case against Guardian fails |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/20/jamiewilson |access-date=29 November 2025 |work=The Guardian |date=20 May 1999}}</ref>
==Politics== Schellenberg was an individualist classical liberal with an "unpredictable"<ref name="TimesObit"/> radical streak, who combined a dislike of both onerous government taxation and bohemian counterculture with socially progressive stances such as support for animal rights and opposition to cigarette advertising.<ref name="Jennings"/><ref name="Tank">{{cite news |title=Still petrol in the tank for daredevil Schellenberg |url=https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/5045742.Still_petrol_in_the_tank_for_daredevil_Schellenberg/ |access-date=28 November 2025 |work=The Northern Echo |date=6 March 2010}}</ref>
In the run up to the 1964 general election, having hitherto shown little active interest in politics, Schellenberg applied to be the Liberal candidate for Richmond, a rural Yorkshire constituency in close proximity to his birthplace in Middlesbrough. The future Liberal MP Michael Meadowcroft, then a young activist at party headquarters in London, remembers him arriving there without invitation and declaring that he was going to be Richmond's next candidate. Although he had not been interviewed beforehand by the local constituency association, he was soon "fast-tracked through the processes" and fought an energetic campaign, making numerous personal appearances with his mobile office, a caravan pulled by a 1930 eight-litre Bentley, in tow.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Meadowcroft |first1=Michael |title=Keith Schellenberg |url=https://www.beemeadowcroft.uk/writing/obits/s/keith-schellenberg |website=www.beemeadowcroft.uk |access-date=28 November 2025}}</ref> During the campaign, Schellenberg claimed that he was short of money and could not find a committee room in Northallerton because "the owners are frightened that to let one to me would hurt their businesses."<ref>{{cite news |title=Twelve new Liberal candidates: 363 now in the field |work=The Guardian |date=24 September 1964 |page=4}}</ref> Although popular on the stump, he was unable to sufficiently swim against the tide (only nine Liberals were elected that year) and came third behind the sitting Conservative MP, Timothy Kitson.
Returning to challenge for the seat in 1966, Schellenberg once more faced Kitson, an "old chum" who apparently believed that Schellenberg was only standing "to annoy him".<ref name="Tank"/> Although the Liberals nationwide did slightly better than last time, at least in terms of seats won, Schellenberg went backwards, losing approximately 2 per cent of his previous vote and seeing the gap widen between himself and the second-placed Labour candidate. Moving to north-eastern Scotland in the early 1970s, he chose to fight his third election campaign in Moray and Nairn at the October 1974 general election. Unlike Richmond, which was a solid Conservative seat, Moray and Nairn was at that time held by the Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Winnie Ewing, who maintained a slender majority of 1,817 over the Tories. She thus captured much of the anti-Conservative vote, leaving Schellenberg to trail in fourth place at under 10 per cent of the poll. He never stood for political office again.
==Winter Olympics and sporting endeavours== Schellenberg competed in the two-man and the four-man Bobsleigh events at the 1956 Winter Olympics.<ref name="SportsRef"/> He subsequently took part in the men's singles in the luge at the 1964 Winter Olympics, coming in 25th place overall.<ref name="SportsRef"/> When years later two of his high-speed racing toboggans were stolen from his home in Richmond, Schellenberg remarked: "In 1964, I was the only member of the British team to finish the course – one man ended up in hospital and the other in the mortuary. Let that be a lesson to these people."<ref>{{cite news |title=Thieves steal toboggans from former Olympian |url=https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/6963810.thieves-steal-toboggans-former-olympian/ |access-date=28 November 2025 |work=The Northern Echo |date=26 January 2005}}</ref> (Gordon Porteous retired mid-way through the competition after suffering from a "heavy cold", while Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypecki died following a training accident before the Games began.)<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bass |first1=Howard |title=Clean Sweep by Germans |work=Daily Telegraph |date=5 February 1964 |page=12}}</ref>
Schellenberg also played rugby union for Middlesbrough RUFC and captained the Yorkshire first XV, at a time when the squad included Phil Horrocks-Taylor and Jeff Butterfield.<ref name="YPobit"/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Huntley |first1=David |title=Wealthy Teesside eccentric who 'flirted with danger' and owned an island dies peacefully at 91 |url=https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/wealthy-teesside-eccentric-who-flirted-17189272 |access-date=28 November 2025 |work=Teesside Live |date=2 November 2019}}</ref> In 1968 he competed in the London to Sydney Marathon in his vintage Bentley, retiring when the car – having nearly reached Erzincan, in Turkey – toppled off the edge of the road, which had subsided under the car's heavy weight.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.vintagebentleys.org/newsletter/2016/jun/page-13.php|title=Article: The 1968 London to Sydney Marathon (Page 1)|website=www.vintagebentleys.org|access-date=2019-11-09}}</ref>
== Powerboat Racing == Keith Schellenberg’s love for motor racing and speed spilled over to offshore racing in 1963 when he entered a Bertram hull, ‘Glass Moppie’, in the Cowes-Torquay race for the first time, where he finished in second place behind the more experienced Sonny Levi.
Schellenberg continued racing throughout the sixties without further success on board ‘Blue Moppie’ and ‘Thunderstreak’. In 1969 he entered the Round Britain race with ‘Botany Bay Express’; however, he was disqualified for having difficulty obtaining radio crystals. He had asked and been given permission for late arrival to find the crystals, but when he turned up for a scrutineering test he was disqualified out of hand without discussion by the Race Committee.
Schellenberg competed in another Round Britain race in 1984 and came out of retirement for the 2008 Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race at the age of 78. This proved to be a successful race, as he finished second in Class and 17th overall in a Cougar US-1 monohull, ‘Yellow Drama’.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.powerboatracingworld.com/keith-schellenberg-has-passed-away|title=Article: Keith Schellenberg has passed away|website=www.powerboatracingworld.com |date=2 November 2019 |last1=Moore |first1=John }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|2}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schellenberg, Keith}} Category:1929 births Category:2019 deaths Category:20th-century English businesspeople Category:Bobsledders at the 1956 Winter Olympics Category:Businesspeople from Yorkshire Category:English people of German descent Category:English rugby union players Category:Liberal Party (UK) parliamentary candidates Category:Lugers at the 1964 Winter Olympics Category:Olympic bobsledders for Great Britain Category:Olympic lugers for Great Britain Category:People educated at Oundle School Category:Rugby union players from Middlesbrough Category:Scottish Liberal Party parliamentary candidates Category:Yorkshire County RFU players