Jane Engelhard - Second Marriage

Second Marriage

The founder of Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals, Charles Engelhard, was a well-connected American entrepreneur who had inherited a small metal fabricating company from his father. In the late 1940s, he had journeyed to South Africa to make his fortune. South African mines had a surplus of gold, but government regulations prohibited the exporting of gold bullion from South Africa without permits from the central bank, which were very difficult to obtain. Great Britain, which still controlled the financial affairs of South Africa, wanted to retain as much gold as possible within the sterling bloc. Engelhard found a loophole through that regulation: while it was illegal to export gold bars, it was legal to export objets d'art made of gold. Engelhard formed a company called Precious Metals Development that bought gold from the mines and cast it in the form of statues and other religious items. Engelhard exported these religious objets d'art to Hong Kong, where they were melted down and turned back into gold bullion, which could then be sold on the free market. (This ploy was later used by Ian Fleming, who was a business partner of Engelhard, in his novel Goldfinger)

Jane Mannheimer moved first to London, then to New York City after her first husband's death. In 1947 she was named vice president of the merchandising division of Holbrook Microfilming Service, a company which was headed by president John J. Raskob and chairman Lt. Gen. Hugh Drum. She also was a member of Sillman & Associates, through which she was a minor investor in Broadway revues such as "New Shoes" and "Gentlemen Be Seated."

In 1947, she married Charles W. Engelhard, Jr. (1917–1971), a multimillionaire minerals industrialist from New Jersey. The couple lived in Far Hills, New Jersey, where they raised golden retrievers and thoroughbred race horses, including the fabled Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing champion, Nijinsky. They had numerous homes, including Cragwood, a 1920s neo-Georgian mansion in New Jersey, a country house in South Africa, and residences in London, Paris, Maine, Nantucket, New York City, and Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula.

The Engelhards had four daughters: Susan Engelhard, Jane Elizabeth Sophia Engelhard, Sally Alexandra Engelhard, and Charlene B. Engelhard. Charles Engelhard also adopted his wife's daughter from her first marriage.