Baron Sinha

[1] It was created in 1919 for Sir Satyendra Prasanna Sinha, a distinguished barrister and zamindar who was the first (and only) Indian ever to be elevated to the hereditary peerage.

He was raised to the peerage two years later, in part due to the perceived need for an Indian representative to steer India-related legislation through the House of Lords.

The petition was referred to the Committee for Privileges on 27 June 1938, and a Commission was appointed to take evidence in Calcutta, on this birth and marriage.

[3] The decision remarks that the decision was not precedent for a peer who had legally married two wives (at the same time), and that there is no British law on heirship in the case of a polygamous marriage; but in this case that difficulty did not arise - and in fact the first Lord Sinha had belonged to the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, a variety of Hinduism which required monogamy.

Owing to the Second World War, however, he was unable to attend Parliament until 1 August 1945, when he was finally sworn in and signed the Register of Peers.

[5] The 3rd Baron Sinha, who unlike his father and grandfather pursued a business career, only infrequently attended sessions of the Lords as he served as chairman of general merchants and holding company Macneill & Barry (now post its acquisition Williamson Magor) and as a director of several Kolkata-based firms, including the Statesman.

When the fire brigade arrived, they discovered the burnt corpses of Shane Patrick Sinha, the four-year old heir presumptive to the peerage, and his three-year-old sister Sharon.

Patricia soon alleged her husband to be a drug addict and pyromaniac who made at least three attempts to set fires at his place of work, at a hotel where the couple had once stayed and at their flat.

The remaining two children continued to live with their father and his family, though Patricia later alleged they "led a dog's life," reportedly never being allowed to sleep in a bed, only on the floor of a room.

In 1996, the 4th baron's sister Anjana Lahiri notified the British press that her uncle was still alive and resident in the UK.