Harold St Maur

Major Richard Harold St Maur JP DL[1] (pronounced "Seemer"; 6 June 1869 – 5 April 1927) was an unsuccessful claimant to the Dukedom of Somerset and briefly a Liberal Member of Parliament for Exeter, being unseated on an election petition by a single vote.

[3] His mother was a 19-year-old half-gipsy maid named Rosina Elizabeth Swan of Higham, near Bury St. Edmunds;[4] St Maur's father died within months of his birth.

St Maur lived at Stover Park, near Newton Abbot, which he inherited from his grandfather the 12th Duke of Somerset in 1885.

[12] On the seventh day, the Court heard evidence that a man named Pannell or Purnell had been paid five shillings by the Liberals to act as a tally clerk.

[13] St Maur served in the First World War, at Gallipoli, then in the campaign against the Senussi, and finally as liaison officer between Lord Allenby and the French Forces.

In 1925, after the death of the 15th Duke of Somerset, St. Maur petitioned the House of Lords Committee for Privileges to safeguard his claim to the Dukedom, in the hope that he might find proof that his parents were married before his birth.

[4] On the death of his grandfather the 12th Duke in 1885, St Maur had been presumed to be illegitimate, and the Dukedom eventually passed to a distant branch of the family.

There is a mural monument to him in Teigngrace church inscribed as follows: In loving memory of Lt. Col. Richard Harold St Maur of Stover.