The 7th Marquess of Bristol threw his fortune away on drug addiction. Photo / Evening Standar/REX Shutterstock
The 7th Marquess of Bristol threw his fortune away on drug addiction. Photo / Evening Standar/REX Shutterstock
The outrage over Lord Sewel's behaviour with cocaine and prostitutes ignores the House of Lords' history
Some people, such as Britain's Prime Minister, will be glad that Lord Sewel has quit the House of Lords after apparently being caught in a sex and drugs sting. What they do not realise is that John Buttifant Sewel was simply upholding the finest traditions of the Upper House.
Indeed, his exploits look positively tame compared to some. If you really want to see a rogue in ermine, check out this list - gathered from our extensive obituaries archive - of seven deadly miscreant peers.
Anthony Vivian became a national celebrity in 1954 when he was shot by Mavis Wheeler, the former wife of Sir Mortimer Wheeler and the former mistress of Augustus John. At the trial, the principal problem for both the defence and the prosecution was that Vivian himself did not seem to be clear about what had happened.
He admitted to the court that during the time between his arrival at the cottage that day and the shooting that night he had drunk a quarter-bottle of wine, three liqueurs, seven to eight glasses of sherry, three to four bottles of stout and "possibly two other drinks". Wheeler was found guilty of maliciously wounding Vivian and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Ten minutes after the sentence the couple were to be found, locked in the most unmurderous of embraces, in a cell beneath the courtroom.
Not long before being shot, Vivian had been arrested for being "drunk and indecent" at South Eaton Place. At Marlborough Street magistrates' court afterwards the charge was proved against him but he received an absolute discharge.
6. Lord Briginshaw (Labour, died 1992)
Once described as "unstable with a marked tendency towards megalomania", Briginshaw was a print union boss in the 1960s.
After an Inland Revenue investigation it emerged that two union premises had been secretly sold twice in the same afternoon. The money appeared to have been laundered in a number of nefarious ways, one of them involving the acquisition of some £8000 worth of Krugerrands. It was later suggested he was on a KGB list of potential recruits. "Are you a Communist?" Briginshaw was once asked in court. "No," returned Briginshaw. "Have you ever been to Russia?" persisted counsel. "Not to my knowledge," the union leader cannily replied. When questioned further he agreed he had been to Moscow, and had meant "not to my immediate knowledge".
5. Lord Kagan (Labour, died 1995)
Kagan made his fortune with Gannex cloth, the lightweight, waterproof fabric for jackets and coats, becoming a multi-millionaire, a life peer and an inmate of Rudgate open prison. Like Briginshaw, his reputation was not enhanced by the suspicion he was close to Moscow.
He was friends with Richardas Vaigauskas, who was expelled for espionage in 1971, but claimed that the association sprang from a mutual love of chess. When sales of Gannex began to dwindle Kagan tried to carve a niche in the growing market for denim. In 1978 he was charged with the theft of indigo dye and with defrauding the public revenue. After two years on the run Kagan was tried and convicted in 1980.
Kagan's domestic arrangements were also far from straightforward; he claimed to have had 40 mistresses by the age of 60. "My wife is not interested in fidelity," he explained. "But no one has ever taken her place in my life. Marriage is for keeps."
4. The 6th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair (Crossbencher, died 2002)
Aberdeen found fame at the age of 80 when he wrote a frank account of his youthful exploits among the bordellos of Beirut, London and Paris. His article, entitled "The Good Whore Guide", charted his adventures as a "sex-starved subaltern" during and after World War II.
At Mme Jannette's in Beirut, Aberdeen recorded an afternoon's pleasure with Olga, a refugee from Yugoslavia -- "the sort of attractive girl you could meet at a point-to-point in Gloucestershire". At Mrs Fetherstonehaugh's in Knightsbridge, the girls were so high class, Aberdeen recalled, that, rumour had it, one Coldstream Guards officer discovered to his horror that "the girl assigned to him was his own sister".
In Paris, at the Viscomtesse de Brissac's house in the XVI arrondissement, Lord Aberdeen's favourite, a "chestnut-haired beauty", was so used to entertaining Germans that she would cry out in her ecstasy: "Ach! Mein Gott." "Tactfully, I didn't remind her that the Germans had left, defeated," Aberdeen recalled.
3. The 4th Earl of Kimberley (Liberal, Conservative; died 2002)
He worked his way through five wives in 25 years before settling down with a former masseuse he had met on a beach in Jamaica.
His interests included shark fishing, UFOs and winter sports. For much of the 1950s he was a member of Britain's international bobsleigh team. His first marriage, in 1945, was to Diana, daughter of Sir Piers Legh, Master of the King's Household and a former equerry to Edward VIII; Kimberley had met her on a blind date at the Ritz. The wedding took place at St George's Chapel, Windsor, and was attended by the Queen, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and King George VI, who proposed the toast to the bride and her groom, then a Guards officer.
Kimberley already knew that he had made a mistake. "I couldn't stop it," he said later, "because the King and Queen were there, and I was in my best uniform." Within a year the marriage was all but over. One night, he was caught naked by an irate husband in a hotel cupboard.
2. The 7th Marquess of Bristol (died 1999)
The 7th Marquess of Bristol threw his fortune away on drug addiction. Photo / Evening Standar/REX Shutterstock
Bristol threw his fortune away as he descended into drug addiction. At 16, he inherited £1 million and two years later a further £ 4 million. At 20 he was fined for stealing "No Waiting" signs from outside the Rolls-Royce garage at which he worked. By 31, he had twice been disqualified for driving while drunk.
At one of his own soirees, frustrated by his inability to open a fridge for some champagne, he blew the door off with a shotgun. At another party, he demolished a 500-glass champagne fountain by tying a piece of cotton thread between it and a duchess's chair. Another time, he lent an American woman a rubber dinghy to fish in the lake at Ickworth, and then fired at it until it sank. The more she screamed, the more he laughed.
John Jermyn succeeded to the marquessate in 1985, but his life thereafter rapidly disintegrated. His marriage foundered and in 1987 was dissolved. In 1988 it was reported he had offered an American male stripper US$6000 for a sexual liaison, but in the event he had been too debilitated by drugs to go through with it.
Among his many notable mentions, the 7th Marquess had the dubious distinction of being the first member of the House of Lords to be deported from Australia.
1. The 3rd Lord Moynihan (died 1991)
Antony Moynihan provided, through his character and career, ample ammunition for critics of the hereditary principle. His chief occupations were bongo-drummer, confidence trickster, brothel-keeper, drug-smuggler and police informer, but "Tony" Moynihan also claimed other areas of expertise -- as "professional negotiator", "international diplomatic courier", "currency manipulator" and "authority on rock and roll". If there was a guiding principle to Moynihan's life, it was to be found on the wall of his office in Manila, where a brass plaque bore the legend: "Of the 36 ways of avoiding disaster, running away is the best."
The first time he ran away was in 1956, to Australia. There were two reasons for his flight. The first was to elude his father's fury over a liaison with a Soho nightclub waitress. The second was to escape his wife, an actress and sometime nude model.
He returned to London, where he effected a reconciliation with his first wife. By 1970 he faced 57 charges - among them fraudulent trading, false pretences, fraud against a gaming casino and the purchase of a Rolls-Royce with a worthless cheque. To avoid disaster he fled to Spain.
His extradition was sought from Spain but he disappeared, to resurface the next year in the Philippines. Moynihan found employment in the narcotics trade, as well as in fraud and prostitution. President Marcos was a "drinking chum". At one stage he ran a brothel within 100m of the British Ambassador's residence.
In Manila, Moynihan lived in a heavily fortified house with a swimming pool, and had a brothel named the Yellow Brick Road. "I just sit back and collect the money," he said.
