Robert Kindersley, 1st Baron Kindersley

Kindersley was born in Wanstead, Essex, the son of Edward Nassau Molesworth Kindersley, of Sherborne, Dorset, and Ada Good, daughter of John Murray. His father was an Old Etonian and Oxford graduate from a wealthy family who had been a captain in the Green Howards and the Indian Army, but had fallen on hard times since resigning his commission and becoming a chemist, working for Scott & Co. Chemical Works at Bow, London; he was also a director of the Anglo American Leather Cloth Company. Kindersley was educated at Repton School but was forced to leave in 1887 when his father could no longer afford the fees. Kindersley was the great-grandson of the civil servant and translator Nathaniel Edward Kindersley, whose mother, Jemima Kindersley (née Wickstead), was a travel writer.

He then became a clerk in several London firms before joining the London Stock Exchange in 1901, becoming a partner in David A. Bevan & Co. in 1902 and the merchant bank Lazard Brothers & Co. in 1905, a firm with which he was connected for the rest of his life and of which he became chairman in 1919.

He married Gladys Margaret Beadle, daughter of the military artist James Prinsep Beadle, of Worton Grange, co. Wiltshire, on 3 November 1896 and had six children; Lionel, Hugh, Margaret, Richard, Philip (who married Oonagh Guinness and Valerie Violet French) and Elizabeth. Lord Kindersley was succeeded in the Barony by his second son Hugh, his eldest son Lionel having been killed in action in the First World War.