THE LATE EARL OF LUCAN (Hansard, 27 April 1949)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT)
My Lords, before we start to-day's Business, I think it is fatting that some tribute should be paid to the memory of one who was very dear to all of us, Lord Lucan. I am deeply sorry that my noble friend Lord Addison is not here to do what he would have desired, to pay this tribute himself. However, it is in some sense fitting that I, a comparative newcomer to this House, should say what I have to say, because I shall never forget that when, some four years ago, I came here for the first time, wondering how I should get on, I felt the friendship of Lord Lucan, and the fact that his advice was always at my disposal. Lord Lucan in very truth enshrined the traditions of the old House and he was, if ever a man was, a real House of Lords man. He was a Member of the other place as long ago as 1904, and he came to this House in 1914. He sat among your Lordships originally as an Irish Representative Peer and his passing reminds us all what we shall lose when that list, already shrinking, comes to its end.
Lord Lucan had a distinguished career as a soldier. He was for a considerable number of years a Whip, and though he may have chastised with whips, I cannot think he could ever brine himself to chastise with scorpions. He was a man, now gathered to his fathers, full of years and honour, of whom we can all say that he had our respect, our esteem and (I do not see why we should not say it) our love. I like to think this about him. I remember that he was a keen cricketer; he had been President of the M.C.C., and I venture to think that there is not much the matter with a man who is elected President of the M.C.C. At least it shows that to a supreme degree he knows how to play the game, and Lord Lucan played the game all his life. I like to recall that there were occasions in the summer-time 66 when the debate in your Lordships' House (if I may be forgiven for saying such a thing) was not very interesting and when the cricket at Lord's was. I used to look at him and he used to look at me, and together we went off to Lord's. I think the fact that he felt as I felt, that we were both playing truant, made it all the more enjoyable, for I believe that one of the charms of character is that a man never completely grows up.
Although he was eighty-eight years old, Lord Lucan still retained the charms of boyhood. As I have said, it is fitting that a member of this Party, who has been a member of this House for but a short time, should pay this tribute. There is no member of the House whose passing I personally regret more than I do Lord Lucan's. I shall never forget the acts of kindness which, from the first day I was here, be showed to me. On behalf of all your Lordships, I feel sure that we should desire to tender our most respectful sympathy to those he has left behind.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
My Lords, every member of the House would wish to be associated in deep sincerity with the tribute which has been paid in such happy and humane terms by the Lord Chancellor. We recall not only Lord Lucan's long and distinguished career of public service, but his career as a soldier many years ago. He was a keen "Green-jacket," both in his regiment and on the cricket field, and for thirty years, I think, the active, keen Chairman of the City of London Territorial Association. As the Lord Chancellor has said, he was a member of both Houses of Parliament. But the tribute that we pay to-day is much more a tribute of personal affection to one who loved this House, and who was the friend of every member of it, from the oldest to the youngest. That affection found its spontaneous expression when we all rejoiced a year or vivo ago to congratulate him upon his golden wedding. For ten years or more he was the Chief Whip of our Party in this House, never an easy position to hold, because Unionist Peers are a very independent body, in fact as well as in name. But he was an ideal Whip. He never appeared to drive his team and yet he always had them where he wanted them. I think that was because we loved the man as much as we respected his quiet, wise judgment. 67 Remembering Lord Lucan's age, one recalls a happy phrase of Mr. Churchill's: Death comes as a respectful friend"; but all our sympathy goes out to those he has left behind.

VISCOUNT MERSEY
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Perth very much regrets that he cannot be in his place at this moment, and he has asked me to say a few words on his behalf. I may say that I regard that as a privilege. I have been associated with Lord Lucan in the business of your Lordships' House for twenty years, and I can reiterate everything that the Lord Chancellor has said. Nobody was more modest than Lord Lucan. He was always ready to help everybody. He had a shrewd judgment. In twenty years I never heard him say a hard word of anyone. He never tried to force things upon either his own Party or the other Whips; everything he did was always done in the kindest and most courteous way.
But apart from this House he had another very close interest, and that was the Territorial Forces. When he left the Army at the end of the last century he turned his mind to the Territorial troops in the county of London. He commanded successively two battalions and a brigade, and after that he became Chairman of the Territorial Association, where he was as beloved as he was in this House. One must not forget that he belonged to a very distinguished military family. His grandfather commanded the cavalry at Balaclava; two of his sons and two of his brothers were distinguished soldiers, while his brother-in-law and his son-in-law were Governors-General—one of Northern Ireland and the other of Canada. It will be a sad gap that we sitting here will face on the Bishops' Bench opposite, where he always sat. Though at times he may have looked as if he were asleep, in fact he heard everything that was going on. I know that your Lordships will extend your sympathy to Lady Lucan and his family.

§ THE EARL OF HALIFAX
My Lords, the speeches that have been made by the three noble Lords who have just addressed the House, in the terms in which they were conceived leave little 68 more to be said. Nevertheless, I would like to add my word of tribute to one for whom I, with all others of your Lordships, had a most sincere affection and respect. During the time that I had the honour to serve as Leader of your Lordships' House, Lord Lucan was, as Lord Swinton has recalled, Chief Whip, and no one could ever have had the advantage of more devoted and loyal service or of wiser counsel. I suppose that every corporate assembly tends to develop its own particular qualities and characteristics, and certainly I think it may be said that one of the properties of your Lordships' House is that, while opinions can be and are strongly held in it, yet it has discovered the secret of so treating them as to remove from Party politics many of the asperities and acerbities that sometimes attend the prosecution of Party arguments. I do not know any man who contributed more to that happy effect by all his thinking, speaking and acting than did Lord Lucan. My Lords, to me he was indeed a type of the best sort of Englishman whom this House has been happy to include among its members, and who over many years rendered very long and faithful service to it.

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE
My Lords, the eloquent tributes that have been paid to the late Lord Lucan indeed leave very little to say, but I think it right that one who was for many years closely associated with him should pay a small tribute. I first became associated with Lord Lucan when I came to the House in 1924, and I shall never forget the kindness that I, as a new member, received from him when he was a Lord-in-Waiting and Assistant Whip. In later years, when he became Chief Whip, I joined the Government, and for over ten years we were very closely associated indeed, both in our duties in His Majesty's Household and also in our duties as Whips in this House. The thing that impressed me most about Charlie Lucan was the way in which he was determined to carry on, to keep himself fit and not to grow old. In the Sessions of the 1930's I used to walk away from this House and he would leave me, sometimes very late, at the place where I was living not far from here, and would walk on 69 to his house a couple of miles or so further on, north of Oxford Street.
Another thing which struck me, and must have struck all your Lordships, was that he loved this House; and we shall indeed miss his familiar figure on the Bishops' Bench. He was always ready to take his turn of duty on the Woolsack and to serve on a Royal Commission, which latter duty, I should think, he must have performed dozens, I almost said hundreds, of times. Lord Lucan was a very modest man. To hear him speak one might have thought that he had not done much in his life, but his life was a very varied and useful one. For about fifteen years he was a most distinguished member of the Rifle Brigade, and when he left the Regular Army he served for many years, first as a Volunteer and then as a Territorial. He served in the field in the Bechuanaland Expedition in the 'nineties, and he commanded an Infantry Brigade in the field in the First World War. For two or three years he was a Member of the House of Commons, and for thirty-six years he took an honourable place in your Lordships' House, for over twenty of which he was in harness as a member of His Majesty's Household and as a Whip. We shall miss him very much, and we shall never forget him. We bid him farewell as a great English gentleman, beloved by all, who played the game and who did his duty right up till the last day of his life.