Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Roland Vaughan Gwynne DSO, DL, JP (16 May 1882 – 15 November 1971) was a British soldier and politician who served as Mayor of Eastbourne, Sussex, from 1928 to 1931.

He was also a patient, close friend, and probable lover of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.

[9] In October 1916 he went out to the Western Front as a Temporary Major with a draft of dismounted men from 2/1st Sussex Yeomanry to reinforce the 10th (Service) Battalion, Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) (Battersea).

Gwyne was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) (much to the surprise of his family[citation needed]) and was decorated with the ribbon in the market square at Steenvoorde on 1 April by the divisional commander.

Realising that they were too late to gain protection from the Creeping barrage, Gwynne went into No man's land alone to see if it would be possible to advance without it, but he was hit twice in the thigh by machine gun bullets, shattering the bone into 12 pieces and severing an artery.

He began quietly blowing his whistle and luckily Lt Lawrie Inkster heard it and organised a stretcher party to rescue him.

[8] He constantly had financial problems, caused on the one hand by his extravagant lifestyle (he was famous for the wild parties he held at Folkington Manor, attended by, among others, The 1st Marquess of Willingdon, who had previously served as both Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India, and Rudyard Kipling) and on the other, by his sexuality, which made him a prime target for blackmail.

Gwynne never married but he developed a close friendship with Dr John Bodkin Adams, an unmarried Eastbourne general practitioner and suspected serial killer, with whom he went on frequent shooting holidays to Scotland and Ireland.

The police officer is strongly suspected to have been the Deputy Chief Constable of Eastbourne, Alexander Seekings, and the magistrate to have been Gwynne.

At that time Gwynne was Chairman of the Magistrates in Lewes, East Sussex, and had to step down from the committal hearing owing to a conflict of interest.

Gwynne was knighted (for public service in Sussex) in the New Year Honours list for 1957,[16] just before Adams' trial began.

The meeting was seen by one of the investigating officers from Scotland Yard, Charles Hewett, as further indication that the Adams' trial was the subject of concerted judicial and political interference.

[18] A month after the trial on 10 May 1957, Goddard heard a contempt of court case against magazine Newsweek and the shop chain W. H. Smith & Son, which on 1 April during Adams' trial had respectively published and distributed an issue of the magazine containing two paragraphs of material "highly prejudicial to the accused", saying that Adams' victim count could be "as high as 400".

He was admitted to Berrow Nursing and Convalescent Home in Eastbourne in March 1964, having executed a power of attorney allowing Sir Dingwall Bateson to take control of his financial and property affairs.