Bishop Welby is among the contenders to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury
As a contender to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, he may not appear the type to harbour a racy family secret.
But the Bishop of Durham, Justin Welby, has revealed his businessman father was a one-time bootlegger in Prohibition America – who then became an executive for a company that survived the alcohol ban by selling Communion wine.
Recently published letters have also revealed that the Bishop’s late father introduced John F. Kennedy to his first mistress, a 21-year-old Swedish aristocrat, weeks before the future President’s marriage to society beauty Jacqueline Bouvier.
Bishop Welby, 56, only became fully aware of the story when the letters surfaced in 2010.
The Cambridge-educated Old Etonian, who has been tipped by senior Church insiders as a potential successor to Dr Rowan Williams, said his father Gavin was a ‘mysterious character’.
He told The Mail on Sunday that his father spoke of sailing to New York from London as a teenager after his mother went bust in the 1929 financial crash.
‘I remember my father telling me she gave him £5 and put him on a boat,’ said Bishop Welby. ‘He said he went to New York in 1929 and traded whisky.
| The Bishop's father was romantically involved with actress Vanessa Redgrave (left) and introduced John F Kennedy (right) to his first mistress, weeks before the future President's marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier |
'When I was studying history, the penny dropped that Prohibition ended in 1933 and he had a lot of friends who had Italian ancestry, so he was bootlegging. He was illegally trading whisky.
‘He went on to become successful in the whisky business and must have met the Kennedys by moving in the right social circles.’
This newspaper has discovered that Gavin became New York import manager for National Distillers Products Corporation, one of America’s biggest liquor distributors.
After the 1919 Prohibition Act, the company announced that it would manufacture and market wine for religious services and alcohol for medicinal and industrial use.
Gavin became one of New York’s most prominent party-givers and was linked in the gossip columns to Pat Kennedy, JFK’s sister.
After the Second World war, he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament and in 1955 married Jane Portal, a private secretary to Winston Churchill, and Justin’s mother.
They divorced when Justin was two.
In a 1955 letter to his first mistress Gunilla von Post, which was auctioned in 2010, JFK wrote: ‘Did you see in the paper that our friend – the cold, frozen Mr Gavin Welby – got married to Mr Churchill’s secretary? Something must have happened.’
Gavin later became romantically involved with actress Vanessa Redgrave, but the relationship ended under pressure from her family, who deemed him ‘a rotten piece of work’.
Bishop Welby, a father of five, was an executive in the oil business before entering the Church.
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