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Napier Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington

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The Right Honourable
The Lord Alington
Born
Napier George Henry Sturt

(1896-11-01)1 November 1896
Marylebone, London, England
Died17 September 1940(1940-09-17) (aged 43)
Cairo, Egypt
Burial placeCairo, Egypt
Known forLover of Tallulah Bankhead
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1928; died 1936)​
ChildrenMary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Sturt
Parents
Military career
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service / branch Royal Air Force
RankGroup captain
Battles / wars

Captain Napier George Henry Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington (1 November 1896 – 17 September 1940) was a British peer, the son of Humphrey Sturt, 2nd Baron Alington.

He was born in November 1896 in the St. Marylebone district of London. He succeeded to the Barony on 30 July 1919 on the death of his father. He owned the Crichel House estate in Dorset.

He married Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper,[1] daughter of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury, on 27 November 1928. They had one child: Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Sturt (b. 1929, d. 2010)[2] who later fought the Government and won, leading to the resignation of a Minister, in the Crichel Down Affair.

Alington may well be most notable for having dated Tallulah Bankhead in the 1920s. Alington was described as "well cultivated, bisexual, with sensuous, meaty lips, a distant, antic charm, a history of mysterious disappearances, and a streak of cruelty."[3] His bisexuality was well known.[4] He was a friend of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski who dedicated his highly sensuous Songs of an infatuated Muezzin Op.42 to the handsome young Englishman, on their publication in 1922.[5]

He had no male heir upon his death, so the title became extinct. The Crichel estate passed to his 11-year-old daughter Mary, who later married Commander George (known as "Toby") Marten.

War service

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In World War I, he was a captain in the Royal Air Force. In World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He was commissioned on 2 July 1940 as an officer in the Administrative and Special Duties Branch[6] and was posted to Cairo, possibly serving as a staff officer at HQ Middle East. He died on 16 September 1940, aged 43, in Cairo on active service, of a short illness after pneumonia, and was buried in the New British Protestant Cemetery, Cairo, Egypt, plot E.221-222[7]

References

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  1. ^ "Mary Sibell Sturt (née Ashley-Cooper), Lady Alington". National Portrait Gallery, London.
  2. ^ "Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Sturt: died 2010". Timesonline. Archived from the original on 23 May 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
  3. ^ DAH-LING The strange case of Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Gottlieb, The New Yorker, 16 May 2005
  4. ^ Moffat, Ivan; Lambert, Gavin (2004), The Ivan Moffat File: Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood, Pantheon Books, p. 107, ISBN 0-375-42247-1
  5. ^ "Songs of the Infatuated Muezzin, Op.42 (Szymanowski, Karol) - IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music". Imslp.org. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
  6. ^ J.N. Houterman. "Royal Air Force (Volunteer Reserve) Officers 1939-1945 - A". Unithistories.com. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
  7. ^ Reading Room Manchester (16 September 1940). "Casualty Details". CWGC. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Baron Alington
1919–1940 		Extinct
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