The entail

In the olden days we had something called the entail, often in favour of the male nearest in descent, not necessarily the eldest son, whereby the owner of property, in particular landed property, was not able to leave that property to whomsoever he or she pleased. All this set up by some ancestor who wanted to stay in charge from the grave, who didn't trust his 'fils à papa', to use a favourite phrase from Simenon, to do the right thing. A subject complicated by the compromise Statue of Wills of 1540, which meant that to a greater extent than had previously been possible, property owners could leave property, by will, to whomsoever they pleased. A compromise between Henry VIII, who wanted to get as much into his own hands as possible, and the rich of his realm, who had different ideas. And the rich, certainly by the 19th century, could spend serious money with lawyers who specialised in breaking entails. All matters which worked their way into plenty of 18th and 19th century novels.

Here in Britain we differed from the Continentals, who had to provide for their nearest and dearest, however badly they might have quarrelled. A subject which was still providing food for the Guardian at reference 1.

All this prompted by a piece in today's FT (reference 2) about how the founders and former owners of Ben & Jerry, the ice cream people, wanted to retain some control, while selling out to Unilever. In particular, for Ben & Jerry to continue to be politically active, active in favour of all kinds of causes - in the present case against the settlement policy of Israel in what used to be West Bank Palestine.

It seems that retiring and cashing-in founder owners are rather fond of having their cake and eating it. That is to say, they want the cash from selling their creation on or from taking it public, but they also want to retain a degree of control, often by creating golden shares carrying, in effect, lots of votes. Zuckerberg of Facebook being one such. According to the FT at least, mostly they don't get away with it and the new owners don't pay much attention to the old owners.

That said, Unilever, not wanting to be shut out of Israel, has got a problem.

PS: Reverso captures nicely my sense of 'fils à papa': daddy's boy, trust-fund baby or trustafarian.

Reference 1: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/31/disinheritance-and-the-law.

Reference 2: Ben & Jerry’s gives Unilever an ice cream headache: The UK group is trying to distance itself from its brand’s Israel policy. It doesn’t wash - Tom Braithwaite/FT - 2021. 23rd July.