Tributes are being paid to the teenage daughter of financier and environmentalist Ben Goldsmith following her death in a quad bike accident.
Iris Annabel Goldsmith “is understood to have become trapped when her vehicle, described as a cross between a quad bike and a Jeep, overturned on private land on the family’s farm”, says The Times.
Emergency service crews including an air ambulance and paramedics are reported to have been called to the property, in the Somerset village of North Brewham, after a friend who was biking with the 15-year-old raised the alarm on Monday.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Her family were said to be “completely devastated” and “numbed to their core” by her death.
As the eldest child of Goldsmith and his former wife Kate Emma Rothschild, Iris was “heiress to two of Britain’s most powerful dynasties”, says Hello! magazine.
Her parents, who are believed to have a joint fortune of more than £300m, have two other children: Frank, 13, and Isaac, 11. Goldsmith also has two young children, Eliza and Arlo, with his second wife, catering firm boss Jemima Jones.
Iris was the niece of Tory MP Zac Goldsmith and British TV and film producer Jemima Khan, the former wife of current Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“Iris is believed to have been studying for her GCSEs at Wycombe Abbey boarding school in Buckinghamshire,” reports The Daily Telegraph.
James Hooke, headmaster of her former school, The Harrodian in Barnes, said: “The school community is united in its grief over the tragic and sad news of the passing of its former pupil Iris Goldsmith. She was a kind, gentle and caring student who adored her friends, and was impeccably behaved. It is tragic that such a talented and vivacious child has been taken from us so young.”
A family friend told the Daily Mail: “This is the most awful accident. Iris was a complete firecracker – an absolute delight. Everyone in the family loved her to bits.
“She was beautiful, charming, intelligent, wonderful company and absolutely the loveliest person you could meet.”
