 Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934; presumed dead), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer suspected of murder who disappeared in 1974. He was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family in Marylebone, the eldest son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan by his marriage to Kaitlin Dawson. An evacuee during the Second World War, Lucan returned to attend Eton College, and then from 1953 to 1955 served with the Coldstream Guards in West Germany. He developed a taste for gambling and, skilled at backgammon and bridge, became an early member of the Clermont Club. Although his losses often exceeded his winnings, 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.
