Jock Delves Broughton

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Sir Henry John 'Jock' Delves Broughton, 11th Baronet (1883 - 5 December 1942) was a baronet who inherited the baronetcy of Broughton in 1914. He is chiefly known for his trial in Kenya for the murder of 22nd Earl of Erroll, who had been conducting an affair with his wife Diana.^[1] These events were dramatised in the film White Mischief.

1 Murder trial
2 Personal life
3 References
4 See also

[edit] Murder trial

The Earl of Erroll was shot dead, by a single pistol bullet in the head, in his car at a crossroads outside Nairobi in 1941, the year after Sir Jock had moved to Kenya with his new wife Diana to join the Happy Valley set, a group of British colonials living in the Happy Valley region of Kenya.

Alice de Janzé was initially viewed by the community as a suspect (a previous mistress of the Earl, she had seriously shot and wounded an earlier lover). But Sir Jock soon became the police's prime suspect and was tried for the murder. He was acquitted for lack of evidence, a conclusion that hinged chiefly on the identification of the gun used. Sir Jock's pistol was a Colt with 6 rifling grooves, and Erroll was killed by a bullet with 5 grooves. No pistol was produced at the trial by the Crown or the defendant. Broughton claimed that two of his pistols, a silver cigarette case and 10 or 20 shillings were stolen 3 or 4 days before Erroll's death.

Superintendent Arthur Poppy, a policeman dealing with the case, claimed that Sir Jock had stolen the guns from himself to give the impression that he had no .32 pistol at the time. Additionally, the fatal bullet's rifling was clockwise. Colts use anti-clockwise rifling. A telegram was sent to the Colt Company in America to clear up the confusion. Another bullet also was fired at Erroll, missed and after ricocheting off a metal pillar in Erroll's car, ended up near the accelerator. It also had 5 grooves and clockwise turning.

A number of books have been written about the case, notably James Fox's investigation White Mischief: The Murder of Lord Erroll, later made into a film. In May 2007 in the Daily Telegraph, author Christine Nicholls described taped evidence claimed to be definitive proof that Sir Jock was the murderer.^[2]

[edit] Personal life

Sir Jock inherited some 34,000 acres (140 km²) of family estate in Cheshire, but was forced to sell off most of it in the 1930s to pay gambling debts.^[3] During World War I, as a captain in the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards, he was due to sail on the troop ship SS Novara, but was taken ill and had to be replaced before the ship sailed.^[4]

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was part of a consortium which owned the Ensbury Park Race Course in Kinson, Dorset - now a part of Bournemouth. When the course closed and the land was sold for development, Sir Jock was commemorated in 'Broughton Avenue'. In 1939 he was suspected of insurance fraud after the theft of his wife's pearls and some paintings, on which he claimed the insurance.^[1]

Despite his acquittal of the murder of Erroll, Sir Jock was never accepted back into the Happy Valley community and returned to England alone, his wife having already taken another lover. In December 1942, a few days after his arrival, he was found dying from an overdose of the barbiturate medinal in the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. The inquest recorded a verdict of suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed, in relation to illness following a back injury from a fall, the official reason for his return to England.^[5]^[6] The baronetcy passed to his son, Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton.

He was married twice: to Vera Edyth Griffth-Boscawen in 1913, divorcing in 1940; then in 1941 to Diana Caldwell (d. 1987), daughter of Seymour Caldwell.^[7] After his death, Diana remarried twice, the second time to Thomas Cholmondeley, 4th Baron Delamere.

[edit] References

Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 107th ed.

^ ^a ^b White Mischief: The Murder of Lord Erroll, James Fox, Vintage Books, 1998, ISBN 0394756878
^ Revealed: the White Mischief murderer, Judith Woods, Daily Telegraph, 11 May, 2007 online
^ Obituary: Isabella Blow, Daily Post, Liverpool, 10 May 2007
^ The Irish Guards in the Great War, Vol 1, 1914 - Mons To La Bassée, Rudyard Kipling
^ Inquest On Sir Delves Broughton, The Times, 15 Dec, 1942
^ Red Strangers: The White Tribe of Kenya, Christine Stephanie Nicholls, Timewell Press, 2005, ISBN 1857252063
^ Obituary, The Times, 07 Dec, 1942;