George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan

George Charles Patrick Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan MC, known as Lord Bingham from 1914 to 1949, was an Irish peer, British soldier and Labour politician. He was a maternal first cousin of Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer, paternal grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Early life

Pat Lucan was the eldest son of the 5th Earl of Lucan and his wife, Violet Sylvia Blanche, daughter of J. Spender Clay. He was educated at Eton College and at the Royal Military College Sandhurst.

Military career

He entered Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Coldstream Guards, during World War I. Remaining in the army, he attended the Staff College, Camberley. He was a colonel and commanded the 1st Battalion of the regiment from 1940 to 1942 during the Second World War. From 1942 to 1945 he was Deputy Director for Ground Defence in the Air Ministry.

House of Lords

He succeeded his father in the earldom in 1949 and took his seat on the Labour benches in the House of Lords. Lord Lucan served under Clement Attlee as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard from 1950 to 1951 and as Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in 1951. Between 1954 and 1964 he was Chief Opposition Whip in the House of Lords.

Marriage and children

Lord Lucan was married on 23 December 1929 to Kaitlin Elizabeth Anne Dawson, daughter of Captain Edward Stanley Dawson, second son of Richard Dawson, 1st Earl of Dartrey. They had two sons and two daughters:

Lady Jane Bingham m. 1960 James Driscol Griffin and had one daughter, three sons.
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, and had three children, Frances, George, and Camilla.
Lady Sarah Bingham m. 1958 William Gibbs and had three daughters, one son.
Hugh Bingham

Lucan died on 21 January 1964, aged 65 resident at 11 Hanover House, Regents Park, London. His free assets were sworn by the Dowager Lady Lucan, who died in 1985, as £53,479. His stake in family settled land was sworn by Coutts to be a further £41,000. These sums were. His widow retained few assets on her death and her estate was sworn for probate in 1986 as £115,376, when she lived at her son-in-law's vicarage. He was succeeded in the earldom and a managed share in the settled estates by his eldest son, who made great gambling losses, was legally presumed to have murdered his children's nanny and suddenly disappeared from the scene in 1974.