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Colonel George Charles Bingham, 5th Earl of Lucan (13 December 1860 – 20 April 1949), styled Lord Bingham from 1888 to 1914, was a British soldier and Conservative politician.
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Background and education
Lucan was the son of Charles Bingham, 4th Earl of Lucan, and Lady Cecilia Catherine Gordon-Lennox. He was educated at Harrow, and later at Sandhurst.
Military career
Lucan was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade in 1881, retiring with the rank of Captain in 1896. In 1900 he joined the 1st London Rifle Volunteers as a Major, rising to the rank of Colonel.
Political career
Lucan was appointed High Sheriff of Mayo for 1902–03.
He was briefly a Member of Parliament for the Chertsey constituency in Surrey as a member of the Conservative Party. He was elected in a by-election on 7 July 1904, and defeated in the United Kingdom general election, 1906 by the Liberal candidate F. J. Marnham. In August 1914 he was elected an Irish Representative Peer. He served under David Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin as a Lord-in-Waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from 1920 to 1924 and under Baldwin from 1924 to 1929. The latter year he was appointed Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, a post he held until the government fell later that year and again in the National Government from 1931 to 1940. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant of County Mayo and Middlesex.
Family
In 1896 Lord Lucan married Violet Sylvia Blanche Spender Clay (died 1972), daughter of Joseph Spender Clay and Elizabeth Sydney Garrett, with whom he had four children:
In 1922 the Lucans gave up their seat at Laleham, and the majority of the estate including Laleham House was sold. Like his father before him, Lord Lucan had earlier bestowed a portion to the community for parkland.
Lord Lucan died in April 1949, aged 88, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son George, who in contrast to his father became a Labour politician. The Dowager Lady Lucan died in 1972.