John Jacob Astor IV IV was born on July 13, 1864 at his parents' country estate Ferncliff in Rhinebeck, New York. He was the youngest of five children and only son of businessman, collector, and race horse breeder/owner William Backhouse Astor, Jr. and socialite Caroline Webster "Lina" Schermerhorn. His four elder sisters were Emily, Helen, Charlotte, and Caroline ("Carrie"). He was a great-grandson of fur-trader John Jacob Astor and Sarah Cox Todd, whose fortune made the Astor family one of the wealthiest in the United States. Astor's paternal grandfather William Backhouse Astor, Sr. was a prominent real estate businessman. Through his paternal grandmother, Margaret
William Waldorf Astor War I, his being made a peer. Willy fell prey to the Press again. After going into self-imposed exile, he unexpectedly died of heart failure in the lavatory of his Brighton, Sussex home. His ashes were buried under the marble floor of the chapel (also called the "Octagon Temple") at Cliveden. William Waldorf Astor William Waldorf "Willy" Astor, 1st Viscount Astor (March 31, 1848 – October 18, 1919) was a wealthy American-born attorney, politician, businessman, and newspaper publisher. He moved with his family to England in 1891, became a British subject in 1899, and was made a peer as Baron