BALDWIN OF BEWDLEY, The Rt Hon 4th Earl (1938 - 2021)

[Henry W]

From Hansard:

The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)

My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, on 16 June. He retired from the House in 2018, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Earl’s family and friends.

Edward Alfred Alexander BALDWIN was the son of the 3rd Earl BALDWIN OF BEWDLEY (1903 - 1976) and (Joan) Elspeth TOMES (died 1980). He m. 1970 Sarah MacMurray JAMES (died 2001) and had issue: 3 sons, incl. Benedict Alexander Stanley BALDWIN (born 1973) who succeeds as the 5th Earl.  I am not aware of any issue of these 3 sons, the youngest of whom was born 1980.

The 4th Earl was an hereditary elected peer as noted by the Lord Speaker. 

[www.maltagenealogy.com]

The new Earl is born on 28 December 1973..

[bx...@yahoo.com]

If anyone has seen any information regarding martial status and offspring of the new Earl and/or his brothers, please post.

Thanks.

Brooke

[www.maltagenealogy.com]

Hopefully an announcement in the Newspaper, will tell us all in due course..

[Jonathan]

I had a quick check of Ancestry, and couldn't find any marriage records for any of them.

[Richard R]

Given that the new earl lives in Sweden and the un-English sounding names of the grandchildren, could they be his issue, born in Sweden to a Swedish mother? The Times obit gives details of the 4th Earl's 2nd marriage in 2015 to the sculptor Lydia SEGRAVE b 1945 who m 1st 1991 as his 2nd wife the economist Ian Little CBE AFC 1918-2012 (gt gs of 4th Baron CLANMORRIS & scion of not descended from the BRASSEY OF APETHORPE barons)

From the Telegraph of 24 June 2021: BALDWIN Edward, Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, on 16th June 2021, aged 83. Much loved father of Benedict, James and Mark and grandfather of Freja and Maja; loving husband of Lydia Segrave.  A private cremation service will be held in Oxford.

Obit in the Times of 24 June 2021:
EXTRACT
The 4th Earl Baldwin of Bewdley obituary
Teacher and alternative health campaigner who worked tirelessly to restore the reputation of his grandfather Stanley Baldwin
Edward was not quite ten when Stanley died. His grandfather had been leader of the Conservative Party from 1923 to 1937, served three terms as prime minister, and was one of the few party leaders to depart of his own volition. He was the youngest of the grandchildren, yet recalled how “I probably absorbed as much or more of his ethos and personality [as his older cousins] by virtue of my father’s unremitting efforts, as I was growing up, to counter the distortions of fact, motivation and character which attached to Baldwin’s reputation soon after he retired”.
...Baldwin was particularly unhappy that the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech (2010) depicted his grandfather as a ditherer who left office on the basis that he misunderstood Adolf Hitler’s warmongering intentions. “It’s completely wrong,” he insisted. “My grandfather understood Hitler and was responsible for the re- armament of Britain. It makes Churchill out to be the hero. It is bad history.”
The balance was redressed in part four years ago when Baldwin was involved in commissioning a bronze sculpture of Stanley to stand in his native Bewdley, in Worcestershire, and which was unveiled by the Duke of Gloucester in 2018...
Edward Alfred Alexander Baldwin was born in Martley, near Bewdley, in 1938, the only son of the 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and his wife, Joan (née Tomes). The peerage had been created in 1937 on the retirement of his grandfather, whose eldest son, Oliver, a former governor of the Leeward Islands, was homosexual and had no children. On the second earl’s death in 1958 the title passed to his brother, Arthur, who had published a vigorous defence of Stanley Baldwin entitled My Father: The True Story (1956).
Young Edward was educated at Eton, [served] as an officer in the Intelligence Corps [and] read modern languages and law at Trinity College, Cambridge...
In 1970 he married Sarah James, who worked in an auction house. She died of breast cancer in 2001. He is survived by their sons: Benedict, a website designer based in Sweden who succeeds to the earldom; James, who works in marketing and is a musician; and Mark, a trainee barrister. In 2015 he married Lydia Segrave, a sculptor and widow of the economist Ian Little. She survives him.
On his father’s death in 1976, Edward succeeded as the fourth earl and as Viscount Corvedale. ...
...He was one of the 90 hereditary peers to remain after the House of Lords reforms in 1999 and retired in 2018.
The 4th Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, teacher and alternative health campaigner, was born on January 3, 1938. He died after a period of ill health on June 16, 2021, aged 83
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-4th-earl-baldwin-of-bewdley-obituary-c62ww99vm

[www.maltagenealogy.com]

Seems like two daughters. I found Benjamin's facebook account, but if someone would like to message him, I can fwd via email the url.

[Jonathan]

The new Earl's partner is Johanna Birgersson (b. 25 July 1984) but it is not clear whether they are actually married. And it's definitely two daughters, so doesn't look so good as far as succession to the earldom is concerned.

Information such as addresses, birth dates and who lives with whom are all matters of public record in Sweden, and available online. Marriage records must also be, if your Swedish is up to it!

[bx...@yahoo.com]

At this point, it appears only the childless 45 and 41 year old younger brothers of the Earl are in the line of succession.  This title is definitely in danger.

Brooke

[malcolm davies]

Agreed Brooke and my recollection is that the article in the last issue of Debretts about peers over 40 without male heirs referred to this title.

[Richard R]

Obit in the Telegraph of 29 June 2021:
E X T R A C T
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, defender of his grandfather Stanley’s political reputation and advocate of complementary medicine – obituary
He worked assiduously to improve the general view of the inter-war Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin’s contribution to public life
The 4th Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, who has died aged 83, combined a gentle, unassuming manner with strong convictions, working devotedly for the causes in which he believed.
As Stanley Baldwin’s only grandson in the male line, Edward Baldwin was always acutely conscious of his heritage. As a young man, he rebelled against it. His American-born mother told the diarist James Lees-Milne in 1979 that Edward had “always resented being a Baldwin, his grandfather’s prime-ministership, and the title”, making his father, the 3rd Earl, “very unhappy”.
All that changed soon after he inherited the title in 1976. He took up his father’s unremitting campaign to clear Stanley Baldwin’s name of the charge that, being a lazy man, he had left the country practically defenceless in the face of Nazi Germany. Few in the 1970s doubted that analysis, since it had originated with Churchill, who once said it would have been “better if Baldwin had never been born”.
…The crowning moment came in 2018 when the Duke of Gloucester unveiled a life-size bronze statue of Stanley Baldwin in Bewdley, Worcestershire…
Edward Alfred Alexander Baldwin, himself a son of Worcestershire, was born on January 3 1938. His father, (Arthur) Windham, a businessman and author (known widely by the affectionate nickname, Bloggs), inherited the title in 1958 from his homosexual elder brother …Edward’s mother (Joan) Elspeth, née Tomes, was recalled by James Lees-Milne as a “beauty with keen blue eyes and the transparent skin of the very frail”. Lees-Milne adored her husband for his “enchanting dry sense of the ludicrous”.
…He was one of the 92 hereditary peers who stayed in the Lords after Tony Blair’s reforms in 1999. Increasing physical frailty, arising from chronic fatigue syndrome, led him to seek formal retirement from the Lords in 2018 under a scheme introduced a few years earlier.
Baldwin’s first wife, Sarah James, an auctioneer, died in 2001. He is survived by their three sons, and by his second wife, Lydia Seagrave, a sculptor, whom he married in 2015.
His eldest son, Benedict, who lives in Sweden, born in 1973, succeeds as the 5th Earl Baldwin of Bewdley.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, born January 3 1938, died June 16 2021
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/06/28/earl-baldwin-bewdley-defender-grandfather-stanleys-political/

[bx...@yahoo.com]

We still have no clue as to whether or not any of the 3 sons have children.

Brooke

[Henry W]

Brooke - see Richard's post on 24 June: he has two granddaughters in a newspaper notice. 

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Henry W, I did see that.  Sorry, I meant to say there were no grandsons, no one else in the line of succession.

Brooke

[colinp]

Debrett's database does not list a spouse or partner for the 5th Earl but does list his daughters Freja and Maja (no YOB's) and also accords them the courtesy title "Lady"

[bx...@yahoo.com]

I was hoping we find out that the Earl and/or at least one of his brothers had a son, but apparently not.  We do know, at least, that the Earl doesn't have a son.

Brooke