The Third Earl of Lucan: difficult to like

One of the characters in my book 13 Park Lane was the Third Earl of Lucan, made famous by his actions as a result of the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade on 25 October 1854

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

The Charge of the Light Brigade (2nd stanza), Alfred Lord Tennyson, December 1854

The Third Earl of Lucan (1800—1882) lived at 10 Charles Street in Mayfair, a substantial town house (when he was in town that is — he also had Laleham Park, a country estate in Surrey, and his Irish estates at Castlebar). The house no longer exists — it was destroyed in the Blitz.

19th century monochrome carte de visite (photograph) of a man in his 60s in a long ovecoat and white shirt. He leans against a broken column. He is bald with rather horrible side whiskers and facial hair. Ugh. — Third Earl of Lucan aged about 63. Carte de visite by Disdéri, Paris © National Portrait Gallery, London

In 1872, the year the main action of my novel 13 Park Lane is set, Lord Lucan was maintaining three relationships. His estranged 62-year-old wife Anne Brudenell, the mother of his six legitimate children; his 32-year-old mistress Elizabeth Powell, who lived in a nice double-fronted villa with their two young children Lavinia and George two and a half miles away from South Street at 81 Maida Vale; and Julie Riel, a 25-year-old French actress, who lived with her mother and two servants at 13 Park Lane (this house was in what is known as Old Park Lane, off the main drag of Park Lane).

copies of the book 13 Park lane by Naomi Clifford showing back view of a 19th century woman in a green gown

The historian Cecil Woodham Smith wrote in The Reason Why that Lucan had no common sense. Other words that have been used about him: vain, obdurate, harsh, stern, perfectionist, martinet, suspicious, temperamentally a loner, few close friends. He liked to throw his weight around with the junior ranks.

Lucan was reviled on his Irish estates in Castlebar, County Mayo, partly because he spent a lot of money converting them into large farms, which involved evicting families from their tenant farms and forcing them into workhouses in the towns or emigration. They nicknamed him The Exterminator.

The Dictionary of Irish Biography was not impressed:

In the parish of Ballinrobe alone he demolished over 300 cabins and evicted 2,000 people (1846–9). He then consolidated the holdings and leased them to wealthy ranchers. Chairman of the board of guardians of the Castlebar Poor Law union, he refused to pay his full Poor rate and insisted that the Castlebar workhouse should be closed at the height of the Famine. His heartless conduct was strongly criticised in parliament, but Lucan defended himself by claiming that he had invested heavily in his lands and that the Famine was proof that consolidation was in his tenants’ long-term interest. The execration he received in these years only aggravated his harshness, irascibility and self-righteousness.

So, we come to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Google it or watch the 1968 film starring Trevor Howard as Lord Cardigan. I am not a military historian or a military anything but my take is that he was pretty rubbish at his Army job too.

Thank you, Royal Collection Trust, for this explanation of what was going on: as war approached between the allied nations of Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia against the Russian Empire, Lucan had overall command of the cavalry division. He was inexperienced in commanding in the field and unfortunately so were his two brigade leaders — Lord Cardigan of the Light Division (who was also Lucan’s brother-in-law — and unhelpfully they detested each other) and Sir James Scarlett of the Heavy Division.

Colour painting illustrating the Light Brigade's charge into the "Valley of Death" from the Russian perspective. Lord Cardigan leading the charge of the light brigade toward Russian artillery on the left, in the foreground, Russian artillery fire on the left flank of the charging light brigade, as artillery on the hills in the background fire on the right flank; Russian cavalry wait in readiness to engage the British or to counterattack. — The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava by William Simpson (1855), illustrating the Light Brigade’s charge into the ‘Valley of Death’ from the Russian perspective. Lord Cardigan leading the charge of the light brigade toward Russian artillery on the left, in the foreground, Russian artillery fire on the left flank of the charging light brigade, as artillery on the hills in the background fire on the right flank; Russian cavalry wait in readiness to engage the British or to counterattack.

On 25 October 1854 during the Battle of Balaklava Lord Raglan issued an order to Lord Lucan to capture guns previously taken by the Russians. The order was conveyed by Captain Nolan, and in turn Lord Cardigan was instructed to lead a charge towards the guns.

Miscommunications (it all hinged on the meaning of a handwritten note) sent Cardigan towards the wrong guns whilst under fire from three sides. Five regiments of Light Cavalry charged.

Result = very bad for the Light Brigade

Dead 156 (129 rank and file 129, 4 trumpeters, 14 sergeants; 9 officers)
Wounded 122
Taken prisoner Unknown
Horses killed killed in action, or destroyed afterwards 335

Lucan, who was never again given an active command, expended a great deal of energy exonerating himself of blame for the bloodbath but he was known in the Cavalry ever after as Lord Look-On, pointing up the way he observed from on high as the Light Cavalry was destroyed.

Question: In the Crimea, did the notorious Lord Lucan, the non-hero of the war, cross paths with Florence Nightingale, the angelic ‘lady with the lamp’? I don’t know. Nightingale arrived at Scutari in Constantinople in late 1854, having been asked by her friend Secretary of War Sidney Herbert to organise a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea. Not the sort of place Lucan would go.

I do know that by 1871 the founder of modern British nursing and the notorious Lord Lucan were next-door neighbours in London.

19th century monochrome photograph of head and bust of a woman with hair parted in the centre, and a white cap, dark dress and white collar. — Florence Nightingale, c. 1860, photographed by Henry Hering.

In 1871 Lucan, aged 71, lived with two female servants and a manservant, and his son-in-law (his daughter’s widower), Baron Hardinge. Florence Nightingale, then aged 51, employed four servants, a personal maid, a cook, and two housemaids.