Death of 3rd Baron Swinfen
David Beamish
Henry W
Richard R
bx...@yahoo.com
colinp
He endured a difficult relationship with his mother Mary Wesley to found his ‘telemedicine’ charity, which has saved lives around the world
Lord Swinfen was the son of Charles Swinfen (Carol) Eady, 2nd Baron Swinfen, a barrister who had inherited the fortune his father Charles, the first Lord Swinfen, had made at the Chancery Bar before becoming Master of the Rolls (and dying) in 1919.
In 1937 Carol Swinfen had married Mary Farmar (later Mary Wesley), the beautiful but rebellious daughter of Colonel Harold Mynors Farmar, CMG, DSO....
On their honeymoon there was “puzzlingly, no sex”, and they only slept together eight times in the following two years.
Somehow, though, she managed to conceive a son and heir, and Roger Mynors Swinfen Eady was born on December 14 1938 at the family home in Ovington Square, Knightsbridge.
After his birth, Mary considered her wifely duties done. With the outbreak of war, she was recruited by the War Office to decipher German codes and, leaving Roger with an aunt in Suffolk, embarked on a series of affairs.
Through a friend, Betty Paynter, she met Paul Ziegler, a Czech émigré, and had an affair, first with him, then with his married brother Heinz, by whom she became pregnant....
When her second son Toby was born in February 1941, her husband accepted him as his own....
By this time her [Mary's] marriage to Carol Swinfen was effectively over and in 1945 they were divorced on the grounds of her desertion. During the court proceedings her brother and sister took her husband’s side, causing a family rift, and Lord Swinfen was awarded custody of the children....
In 1962 [Roger] married Patricia Blackmore, a lieutenant in Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, with whom he had three daughters and a son....
In 1969 Siepmann [Mary Wesley's 2nd husband] took his own life, and on the night after his death Mary told Roger, who until then had believed Toby was his full brother, the truth.
If this was an attempt to mend family fences, it backfired. After inheriting the title on his father’s death in 1977, Roger, urged on by Scammell [Mary Wesley's brother-in-law], attempted to cut Toby Eady, by now a successful literary agent, out of the inheritance on grounds of illegitimacy.
This resulted in a bitter legal action that lasted five years and was finally resolved in Toby’s favour in May 1982, on the day Mary Wesley’s first novel, Jumping the Queue, was accepted for publication....
Lord Swinfen was an active member of the House of Lords, serving on various committees and taking a particular interest in policy towards the disabled.
As well as spending many years with the John Grooms Association for the Disabled, he served at various times as president of the South East Region British Sports Association for the Disabled and honorary president of the Britain Bangladesh Friendship Society.
He was also patron of the Disablement Income Group, of the 1 in 8 Group, the KunDe Foundation, Labrador Rescue South East, and World Orthopaedic Concern. He was director of the American Telemedicine Association from 2009 until 2013, winning its Humanitarian Award in 2018.
In 1999 he was one of the 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords following the passing of the House of Lords Act. He was appointed MBE in 2016.
Lord Swinfen is survived by his wife and children and is succeeded in the peerage by his son, Charles Roger Peregrine Swinfen Eady, born in 1971.
Lord Swinfen, born December 14 1938, died June 5 2022
One wonders therefore if Toby Eady is considered in law as the legitimate son of the 2nd Lord Swinfen - or at least until a court should find otherwise