Walter Long, 2nd Viscount Long

Walter Francis David Long, 2nd Viscount Long (14 September 1911–23 September 1944) was a British peer.

The eldest son of Brigadier General Walter Long, CMG, DSO (d.1917), Long was educated at St David's School, Reigate, [The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain by George Edward Cokayne 1940] and later at Eton on the insistence of his mother, who had remarried in 1921 to Baron Glyn. Traditionally the Longs were educated at Harrow. After his father's death in 1917, there was tension between his grandfather, the 1st Viscount Long and his mother, who refused to allow her son to spend any of his school holidays with him at Rood Ashton House. Lord Long was afraid that she had not instilled any affection for Rood Ashton in his grandson, and he consequently believed he might eventually sell the estate, [Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, Papers of Viscount Long, Ref 947] which had been in the family for hundreds of years.

On 14 November 1933, he married Frances (Laura) Charteris (a granddaughter of Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss) and they had one daughter, Hon. Antoinette (Sara) Frances Sibell Long (born 1934), who married Charles Morrison, the second son of the 1st Baron Margadale.

Long's father had been killed in action in 1917, during World War I and so on the demise of his grandfather in 1924, Long aged just 13, inherited the latter's title. In 1933 directly after his marriage, he and his new wife travelled to New Zealand to take up an appointment as Aide de Camp to Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe.

Viscount Long and his wife divorced in 1942. The former Lady Long subsequently married three more times, in 1943 to the 3rd Earl of Dudley, in 1960 to Michael Canfield, and lastly in 1972 to the 10th Duke of Marlborough. [Laughter from a Cloud. The Autobiography of Laura, Duchess of Marlborough - 1980]

During World War II, Lord Long fought as a Major with the Coldstream Guards and he himself was killed in action at Uden, Netherlands in 1944. [Obituary, The Times 3 October, 1944; Issue 49968] Lacking male heirs, he was succeeded by his uncle, Richard.

References

External links

* [http://www.cwgc.org/debt_of_honour.asp?menuid=14 Commonwealth War Graves Commission Searchable Database]