#15202, Henry John (Jock) DELVES BROUGHTON

On the outbreak of the First World War, as a captain in the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, he was due to sail with his men, but was taken ill and had to be replaced. He was forced to sell off most of the 34,000 acres  of the family estate in the 1930s to pay gambling debts. 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. 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. Months after he and Vera divorced, Delves Broughton married Diana Caldwell in Durban, Natal, South Africa, on 5 November 1940, and the couple moved to the Kenya.

He was tried for murder

Lord Erroll was found shot in the head in his car at a crossroads outside Nairobi on 24 January 1941. He and the Delves Broughtons were part of the so-called Happy Valley set living in Kenya.

Erroll's former lover, Alice de Janze, was initially viewed by the Happy Valley set as a suspect, but Sir Jock Delves Broughton – whose wife was very publicly carrying-on with Erroll – was arrested. He was acquitted at trial for lack of evidence, a conclusion that hinged on the identification of the murder weapon. Delves Broughton's pistol was a Colt with 6 grooves, and Erroll was killed by a bullet with 5 grooves. No pistol was produced by the Crown or by the defence. Delves Broughton claimed that two of his pistols, a silver cigarette case and 10 or 20 shillings were stolen days before Erroll's death (Superintendent Arthur Poppy, a senior officer in the Kenya Police, claimed that Delves Broughton had stolen the guns from himself to give the impression that he had no .32 pistol at the time).

Additionally, the bullet that killed Erroll was fired by a pistol with clockwise rifling; Colts use anti-clockwise rifling. Another bullet fired at Erroll also had 5 grooves and clockwise turning. On 11 May 2007, The Daily Telegraph writer Christine Nicholls described taped evidence she claimed was definitive proof that Delves Broughton killed Erroll.

Delves Broughton was never accepted back into the Happy Valley set and returned to England alone, his wife having already taken another lover. In December 1942, a few days after his arrival, 59-year-old Delves Broughton was found dying from a morphine overdose at the Adephi Hotel, 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. The baronetcy passed to his son, Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton. After his death, his widow Diana remarried twice, the first time to the Happy Valley's wealthiest settler, Gilbert Colvile, and the second time to the 4th Baron Delamere.

These events were the subject of a book White Mischief by James Fox published in 1982 and a film by the same name and a TV drama Happy Valley in 1987.

He was succeeded as 12th Baronet by Major Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton (1915-1993), educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was commissioned 2nd Lt. in the Irish Guards and promoted Major in the RASC.  He inherited the baronetcy from his father in 1942.  In 1947 he married firstly Hon. Elizabeth Florence Marion Cholmondeley, elder daughter of the 4th Baron Delamere; in 1955 he married Helen Mary Shore with whom he had four children including Isabella Blow; in1964 his only son, John died aged two by drowning in an ornamental pond. Following separation from his second wife in 1972 (she died 17th October, 2025 aged 95) he married thirdly Rona Cramond (nee Clifford Johns. As he left no surviving son, his distant cousin Geoffrey Delves Broughton inherited the title after proving his right of succession 29 years later.  

Sir David Delves Broughton 13th Bt (1942-20210

Sir Geoffrey Delves Broughton 14th Bt born 7th August 1962

The heir apparent is the present baronet's elder son, Peter Thomas Delves Broughton, born 1991