In the ensuing generations since Freud passed away many of his descendants have made major contributions to secular knowledge and culture. They include, of course, his daughter, Anna, a founder of child psychoanalysis, particularly through the auspices of the Hampstead Child Therapy Centre (now the Anna Freud Centre) which she helped to establish in London in 1947.
Anna’s brother, Martin, was a lawyer who looked after his father’s finances, and Ernst, who was a successful architect. Their descendants numbered notable writers, artists and journalists, academics and busi-nesspeople.1 Many have moved in the highest circles of British aristocracy and government. Freud’s grandson Clement (by Ernst) received a knighthood after serving several terms as the Liberal MP for the Isle of Ely.2 His very rivalrous brother, Lucian, one of the greatest English portrait painters of all time, one-up’d Clement exclaiming:
Why on earth would I want to speak with him or see him? I was offered a knighthood, but turned it down. My younger brother has one of these. That’s all that needs to be said on the matter. (Singh, 2000, p. 3)
Their feud lasted over seventy years and was never resolved. Apparently, as teenagers, the two boys were racing in a park. Lucian cried out, “Stop thief,” whereupon a passer-by apprehended Clement. This allowed Lucian to rush to the finish line. The prank so enraged Clement that he refused to have anything to with his brother again (Berke, 2012, cit., 40).
Although he refused a knighthood, Lucian counted many members of the aristocracy as patrons and friends. His second wife was Lady Caroline Hamilton-Temple Blackwood, eldest child of the 4th Marquess of Dufferin and a scion of the Guinness family.3 Her mother, Maureen Guinness, was so incensed by this liaison with a Bohemian, “Jewish hanger-on,” that she tried to hire gangsters to kidnap her daughter or dispose of her lover. What she did not know was that Lucian used to hang out with these same gangsters and they told him what was going on. (He was friends with the notorious Kray brothers and other Paddington hoodlums.) So this put paid to her plot (ibid., pp. 105–115).4
Lucian’s cousin, Walter Freud (by Martin), was a war hero who parachuted and captured an airfield in Austria single handedly.5 His son, David, was a controversial banker and Conservative politician. He served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and, under Labour, was put in charge of welfare reform. Eventually he was created a life peer and was known as Baron Freud.6
By anyone’s standards, Lucian was not just a prolific painter, but a prolific lover. It is said that he fathered forty children, although only fourteen (by six women) are directly known.7 One of Lucian’s daughters, Bella (Freud’s great-granddaughter), the sister of the noted novelist Esther, is a well-established fashion designer. On the other hand, Clement’s children, while not nearly so numerous, have had a major impact in the media and public relations. Clement’s daughter, Emma (Freud’s great-granddaughter) has had a thriving career in TV, radio, and films. In 2011 she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Comic Relief.8 His son Matthew (Freud’s great-grandson) is one of the most influential men in England through his enterprise, Freud Communications. It is the eighth largest and possibly the best-connected public relations company in the UK. Matthew’s first wife, Caroline Hutton, subsequently married the 9th Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales. His second wife was Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of the media magnate, Rupert Murdoch.9
Their father, Clement, has successfully reinvented himself time and time again. During the Second World War he acted as an aide to Field Marshal Montgomery. Later he became a “celebrity chef” at the famed Dorchester Hotel. About the same time he developed his career as a sports journalist and TV personality. Clement became a familiar face on TV over a series of dog food advertisements co-starring with a bloodhound called Henry. His trademark was a “hangdog” expression.10
In addition to his political career, he became well known as a panelist on the long-running radio show, Just a Minute. A fellow participant reminisced, “Clement’s way of playing the game was to win: that’s what he cared about” (Merton, 2009).11 As an MP, Clement told the story of leading a trade delegation of British MPs to China in the late 1970s. When they checked into the hotel, he was surprised to discover that a junior member of the delegation had been given the presidential suite, while he had only been offered a poky single room. He went down to the front desk and complained, “I don’t mean to make a fuss, but it seems that Mr. Winston Churchill has been given the presidential suite despite the fact that I am the leader of this delegation.” The manager explained that this was because Mr. Churchill had such a very famous grandfather. Clement chuckled, “Well this is the first time that I have been out-grandfathered” (Doctorow, 2009, p. 8).