John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan

The Right Honourable The Earl of Lucan
Lucan with his wife, Veronica, in 1963
Other titles	Baron Bingham Baron Lucan Baronet Bingham of Castlebar Lord Lucan
Born	Richard John Bingham (1934-12-18)18 December 1934 Marylebone, London, England
Disappeared	8 November 1974 (aged 39) Uckfield, East Sussex, England
Status	Declared dead in absentia on (1999-10-27)27 October 1999, with an official death certificate being issued on (2016-02-03)3 February 2016
Other names	Lucky Lucan
Occupations	Banker professional gambler
Title	7th Earl of Lucan
Predecessor	George Bingham, 6th Earl
Successor	George Bingham, 8th Earl
Spouse	Veronica Mary Duncan ​ ​ (m. 1963)​
Children	3, including George, 8th Earl of Lucan, and Camilla Bloch
Father	George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service / branch	British Army
Years of service	1953–1955
Rank	Second lieutenant
Unit	Coldstream Guards

Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934 – disappeared 8 November 1974, declared dead 3 February 2016), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer and gambler who vanished in 1974 after being suspected of killing his children's nanny and attempting to murder his wife.

An evacuee during World War II, Lucan attended Eton College and served with the Coldstream Guards in West Germany from 1953 to 1955. Having developed a taste for gambling, he played backgammon and bridge, and was an early member of the exclusive group of wealthy British gamblers at the Clermont Club. Lucan's losses often exceeded his winnings, yet he left his job at a London-based merchant bank and became a professional gambler. He was known as Lord Bingham from April 1949 until January 1964, during his father's lifetime.

Lucan was known for his expensive tastes: he raced power boats and drove an Aston Martin.^{[nb 1]} In 1963, Lucan married Veronica Duncan, with whom he had three children. The couple moved home to 46 Lower Belgrave Street in Belgravia in 1967, paying £17,500 for the house. After the marriage collapsed in late 1972, he moved out to a nearby property. A bitter custody battle ensued, which Lucan eventually lost. Apparently obsessed with regaining custody of the children, Lucan began to spy on his wife and record their telephone conversations. This fixation, combined with mounting legal expenses and gambling losses, had a dramatic effect on Lucan's life and personal finances.

On the night of 7 November 1974, Sandra Rivett, the nanny of Lucan's children, was murdered in the Lucan family home. A wounded Lady Lucan burst into the Plumbers Arms; she claimed to have been attacked by her husband and that he had admitted to killing Rivett. Lord Lucan had, by then, telephoned his mother, asking her to collect his children, and driven to visit a friend in Uckfield, East Sussex; he penned letters, protesting his innocence, claiming that he had intervened with an intruder attacking his wife and that his wife accused of him hiring a hitman to kill her.^[1] In the early morning hours of 8 November, Lucan drove off. The car was found abandoned in Newhaven. Despite police issuing a warrant for his arrest, Lucan was never found. At the inquest into Rivett's death, held in June 1975, the jury returned a verdict naming Lucan as her killer.^[2] Lucan was declared legally dead in 1999,^[3] and a death certificate issued in 2016 allowed his titles to be inherited by his son George.^[4][5] Lucan's involvement in Rivett's murder and his fate remain a subject of debate, various theories, and continuing research.

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