LORD LUCAN

  

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LORD LUCAN

Specialty Definition: Earl of Lucan

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Earl of Lucan is a title in the Irish peerage which has been possessed by two related Irish families in creations of 1634 and 1795.

Associated titles

Baron Lucan of Catlebar (1776)
Baron Bingham created (1934)

In 1690, Patrick Sarsfield, who had been one of King James II's senior Irish commanders during his battles in Ireland with William of Orange for the English, Scottish and Irish thrones (see Glorious Revolution) was given the title of Earl of Lucan. Sarsfield's son James Sarsfield died without an heir in 1718 and the title passed out of use.

Patrick Sarsfield's great nephew, Charles Bingham had the title restored in 1795. Due to the long period in which the title was in abeyance, and because legal questions had existed over whether James II was still king when awarding the title and so entitled to enoble Sarsfield, Charles Bingham is usually known as the 1st Earl of Lucan. Patrick Sarsfield is often referred to simply as the Earl of Lucan.

The title became notorious after the disappearance of Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan in 1974, who is suspected of the murder of his children's nanny.

The 7th earl's son and heir cannot inherit the title of Earl of Lucan until his father is declared legally dead. Thus, whilst the 7th Earl's whereabouts are unknown, his son remains known by his courtesy title, George Charles Bingham, Lord Bingham, though it has been reported that he may soon begin efforts to have the 7th Earl declared legally dead. In the meantime, Lord Bingham has assumed control of his father's estates, though his efforts to collect ground rent has proved controversial with those previously paid ground rents to the Earls of Lucan but who had not done so since the 7th earl's disappearance.

List of succession

Earl of Lucan created 7 June 1634; extinct 1693 Baron Lucan of Castlebar created 24 July 1776

Earl of Lucan created 1 October 1795

Baron Bingham created 30 June 1934

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Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born December 18, 1934) (usually simply Lord Lucan) is the subject of one of the world's great unsolved mysteries.

Lucan was a well-known figure in high society. His whereabouts have been unknown since November 7 1974, when his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was found murdered at his estranged wife's home in Belgravia, London. Lady Lucan, who was also attacked that night, said her husband was the killer. Lord Lucan claimed, to a family friend he visited later the same night, that he been walking past the house, had seen someone struggling with Lady Lucan and entered the house to help her. He said he calmed her down but had slipped on a pool of blood on the way into the house. Lady Lucan then left the house screaming 'Murder'! He then panicked, he said, and left the scene. A car Lucan was borrowing at the time was later found abandoned containing some blood of two types in Newhaven.

At an inquest, the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of unlawful killing, naming Lord Lucan as the murderer. Many alleged sightings of him have been reported from all over the world since then, but the police investigation has drawn a total blank in its efforts to find the runaway earl. In 2000, John Aspinall, a casino owner, conservationist and good friend of Lord Lucan, gave an interview in which he said that Lucan had committed suicide by scuttling his powerboat that he kept at Newhaven. Aspinall said that he had no doubt that Lucan had killed the nanny, but that it was a mistake and Lucan had intended to kill he wife (a widely-held belief) and had killed himself out of shame for the botched job he had done, killing an innocent bystander.

In 1999 The Times newspaper reported that the High Court had declared Lucan dead and that his estate (much diminished by Lucan's notorious gambling) could be wound up by his executors. However a death certificate had not been published and Lucan's son, Lord George Bingham has not been able to take the title of 8th Earl of Lucan or sit in the House of Lords, and since the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999 would be unable to sit by virtue of the hereditary peerage.

In September 2003 a book entitled Dead Lucky : Lord Lucan The Final Truth authored by a former Scotland Yard detective claimed to have solved the mystery of Lucan's disappearance. He claimed that Lucan fled to Goa, India, arriving there a year after the death of his children's nanny. The book includes photos taken there in 1991 of a man who looked somewhat similar to Lucan, including a lack of ear lobes. The man who died in 1996 was known in Goa as Barry Haplin (or, according to the book, Jungle Barry). However these claims were almost immediately dismissed. BBC Radio 2 presenter Mike Harding said in a letter to The Guardian newspaper that he knew Barry Haplin from his days as folk musician in Liverpool in the 1960s and that he had gone to India 'as it was more spiritual than St. Helens'. Lord Lucan's ex-wife and son scorned the suggestion in separate statements. Given the extremely rapid disproving of the claims The Sunday Telegraph, which serialised part of the book, was left with egg on its face in a manner reminiscent of The Sunday Times' publication of the bogus Hitler Diaries.

The phrase "do a Lord Lucan" now means to disappear or go missing. The phrase is generally applied in a humorous context.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan."

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INDEX

1. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.