IN 2013, a letter arrived at the offices of UK commercial property publication the Estates Gazette. It was only four sentences, polite, and entirely devoid of the self-congratulation one might expect to be sometimes found in the correspondence of the ultra-wealthy.
In it, Sir David Kirch made a request that he be removed from any future Rich List because, as his accountant had apparently put it, he had ‘virtually cleaned himself out’ by transferring his £100 million fortune to a charitable trust.
There was no flourish or attempt to make a “statement”; it was simply a request to disappear from a league table he no longer felt belonged to him.
Indeed, for Sir David, who had had an exceptionally successful career in UK property, wealth was not an ornament or a status symbol; it was a tool, and using it to help those he felt needed it most was a personal mission.
Sir David focused his efforts on Jersey’s elderly population. When he turned 70 in 2006, he decided to give £100 vouchers to every Islander over that age at Christmas and on Liberation Day. It would have been easy to treat that as a one-off gesture but, instead, it became a habit which he sustained over the next two decades.
The trust he established went further, funding homes for over-55s, with the aim of giving them security and dignity well beyond his own lifetime. His efforts offered practical relief and, perhaps just as importantly, a feeling of being noticed and valued for a generation he felt was too often overlooked.
Even when his own liquidity was stretched, Sir David found ways to fulfil his promise to the Island. When the funds were not immediately available, he borrowed. In his later life, he even turned to selling off part of his legendary collections – vast and eclectic assemblies of Zeppelin memorabilia and historic bank notes.
Sir David passed away at the General Hospital on Saturday at the age of 89.
The phrase “be the change you want to see in the world” can sometimes sound trite – the sort of thing you might see on a pastel-coloured greetings card or a LinkedIn post by a business boasting about its “sustainability” credentials – but, in Sir David’s case, it was simply how he lived.
His life was defined by the deliberate unburdening of himself for the benefit of his neighbours. He was not someone who simply made declarations about inter-generational compassion or reform; he arranged his affairs so that the outcomes he believed in would follow – then, now and long into the future.
He leaves behind an island that is undeniably better for his presence. The trust will continue its work, and the vouchers will still be distributed, but the man who preferred the company of his charitable goals to the prestige of his net worth will be deeply missed.
