Edward Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford

Lagonda M45 like the one Freddie de Clifford drove in sports car races

Edward Southwell "Freddie" Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford (born January 31, 1907 in Belgravia , London , † January 3, 1982 in Cleobury Mortimer , Shropshire ) was a British racing driver , military and peer . He gained notoriety in particular for being the last British peer to be tried on a crime charge in the House of Lords . He was eventually acquitted.

Life

Early years

He was the only son of Jack Russell, 25th Baron de Clifford (1884-1909) from his marriage to Evelyn Chandler (1887-1979). He was still a toddler when his father died in a car accident on September 1, 1909, at the age of only 25. He inherited his father's title of nobility as Baron de Clifford and some lands in the Irish counties of Mayo and Galway . He attended Eton College and studied engineering at Imperial College London .

On March 11, 1926, he married in Marylebone , London, Dorothy Evelyn Meyrick († 1987), the daughter of a London nightclub owner. At the time, Lord de Clifford was only 19 years old and needed his mother's consent in order to marry. Fearing that this consent would be denied, he stated that he was actually 21 years old and the son of an engineer named Jack Russell. When this ruse was discovered, which was not difficult given the details of the marriage announced in all the newspapers, he was fined by the Lord Mayor of London , who was the judge. This marriage had two sons, Hon. John Edward Southwell Russell (1928-2018) and Hon. William Southwell Russell (1930-2013).

In 1926 he joined the British Army Volunteer Reserve and in 1929 became a lieutenant in the 21st Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, a unit of the Territorial Army equipped with armored automobiles .

When he came of age, he also became a member of the House of Lords in 1928 . He was particularly committed to the subject of road safety and advocated compulsory driving tests and speed limits in Parliament , which were finally introduced in the United Kingdom for the first time with the Road Traffic Act 1934 . In the course of the 1930s he was an ardent supporter of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists .

Trial before the House of Lords

On a foggy summer night on August 15, 1935, Lord de Clifford drove his Lancia sports car down a bypass road from Kingston upon Thames at 3:30 a.m. and collided head-on with Douglas George Hopkins' Frazer-Nash four-seater. Hopkins, who came home from a party with his sister Sheila and her friend Rosemary Reynolds, died at the scene of the accident. There appears to have been no doubt that Lord de Clifford had driven on the wrong side of the road, and on subsequent investigation the jury unanimously agreed that Hopkins had died as a result of Lord de Clifford's willful negligence. He was so before the Central Criminal Court for manslaughter ( Manslaughter accused).

However, the authorities soon realized that the House of Lords had sole jurisdiction over a crime against a British peer . This caused quite a mess, as the House of Lords had not been brought before any of its members in a while and its first priority was to set up a selection committee to set precedents for such a process. Notably, the last time such a trial was convened was in 1901 when Clifford's distant relative, 2nd Earl Russell , was charged with bigamy in front of his colleagues .

The opening of the trial on December 12, 1935 became a social occasion. Entry was only possible with an admission ticket. The trial took place with the participation of Lord Chancellor Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham , who acted as Lord High Steward . The Attorney General Thomas Inskip led the indictments, the Barrister Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett (1879-1936) led the defense.

The process itself turned out to be surprisingly short. The prosecution's lecture consisted of the testimony of three witnesses, the two passengers in the Fraser-Nash and the police officer who recorded the accident. The defense argued that the mere fact that a motorist was on the wrong side of the road was not evidence of negligence, and even less evidence of criminal negligence. She then went on to explain that the other car was traveling at an unsafe speed and out of control, claiming Edward dodged to the opposite side of the street to avoid a collision, only to find that the other car was also the side switched, leading to the accident with one fatality. To the surprise of most observers, this argument was accepted by the assembled jury and Lord de Clifford was found not guilty.

Lord de Clifford was subsequently still facing dangerous driving charges, which were not a crime and could therefore be prosecuted by the criminal courts. His trial was due to begin the following January at the Old Bailey , but the Crown ruled that, given the previous acquittal, it would be quite futile to proceed with this alternative charge and therefore did not provide any evidence. The charges were eventually dropped.

The special jurisdiction for peers was critically discussed in the UK public and press and the trial of Lord de Clifford was to be the final criminal case to be decided by the House of Lords. In 1948 the House of Lords' jurisdiction over such cases was finally abolished.

Late years

Later in 1936, Lord de Clifford stood on trial again, this time in civil court, as a co-defendant in divorce proceedings for adultery . At the same time, he sued The Spectator magazine in 1936 for defamation - the proceedings were settled out of court.

From 1938 he hardly took part in parliamentary debates, finally gave up motor sports and brought his knowledge of engine mechanics to the maintenance of armored vehicles in service for the Territorial Army. In 1939 he was promoted to captain of the Royal Armored Corps of the Territorial Army. During the Second World War he was transferred within the Territorial Army to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in 1942 and in 1943 with the rank of Colonel to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers . In 1946 he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and moved to the regular British Army. In the spring of 1955 he was named Officer of the Order of the British Empire .

After the war he lived separated from his first wife and was finally divorced from her in 1973. On December 4, 1974, he married Mina Margaret Sands for the second time, with whom he already had an illegitimate daughter, Joanna Clare Russell (* 1965). At the time he was living in Wrantage , Somerset , where he briefly ran a quarantine kennel before starting his career as a door-to-door dog food seller . He eventually moved to Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire, where he died on January 3, 1982. He was survived by his second wife, and his older son, John, inherited his title of nobility.

Racing career

Lord de Clifford was active as a racing driver in the 1920s and 1930s. In automobile racing he mostly used the short name Freddie Clifford. In 1931 he finished 20th in the Monte Carlo Rally with a 2-liter Lagonda . In 1933 he bought a Lagonda M45 , drove it from London to Brindisi and was 14 hours faster than the express train.

In 1932 he started the Mille Miglia , but was canceled. In 1936 he finished fourth overall with Richard Seaman in the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race .

Lord de Clifford has competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours four times in three years . In 1934 , when he made his debut, he competed twice in the race. On the one hand, he reported a converted Lagonda M45 under the type designation Lagonda Rapier. His team partner was Charles Brackenbury . He drove in that race but also one of Tim Rose Richards reported Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 . Here was teammate Owen Saunders-Davies . While the Alfa Romeo was eliminated with valve damage, de Clifford finished the race with Brackenbury in the Lagonda in 16th place overall. In 1937 and 1938 he left the company prematurely due to defects.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1934	Lord de Clifford	Lagonda Rapier	Charles Brackenbury	Rank 16
1934	Tim Rose-Richards	Alfa Romeo 8C 2300	Owen Saunders-Davies	failure	Valve damage
1937	RH Eccles	Singer 9 Le Mans Replica	Marjorie Eccles	failure	Ignition damage
1938	Norbert-Jean Mahé	Talbot T150C	TASO Mathieson	failure	Ignition damage

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .
• FML Thompson: Russell, Edward Southwell, twenty-sixth Baron de Clifford (1907-1982). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X ( online edition ).

Web links

• Freddy Clifford at Racing Sports Cars
• Lord Freddie de Clifford at Historic Racing
• Lt.-Col. Edward Southwell Russell, 26th Lord de Clifford on thepeerage.com
• Edward Southwell Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford at everything2.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Edward Cokayne , Vicary Gibbs (Ed.): The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. Extant, extinct, or dormant. Volume 3, The St Catherine Press, London 1911, p. 301.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} de Clifford, Baron (E, 1299) at Cracroft's Peerage
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} everything2.com .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Peter W. Hammond (Ed.): The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times. Volume 14, Sutton Publishing, Stroud 1998, p. 189.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Charles Mosley (Ed.): Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage . Volume 1, Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, Wilmington 2003, p. 1065.
6. ^ ^{A b} Hansard : Lord de Clifford. House of Lords Debate December 12, 1935, Volume 99, § 215-218 .
7. ^ Spa 24 Hours 1936. At: Racing Sports Cars.
8. ↑ The Logonda Rapier in Le Mans in 1934.

predecessor	Office	successor
Jack Russell	Baron de Clifford 1909-1982	John Russell