Robert Vere Spencer Bernard 1944-2026

 Robert Vere Spencer Bernard, who died 6 January, 2026, aged 81, was a scion of the Dukes of Marlborough.

He was born 1 December, 1944, the second son of Dr John Gray Churchill Spencer (1907-1977), and his wife the former Elsie Phyllis Corley (1911-2001). He married 1stly, 1975 (div. 2003), Katherine Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott (1946-2008), daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Claud Everard Walter Montagu Douglas Scott (1915-1994), and his wife the former Margaret Frances Phillips (1917-2000); and married 2ndly, 1 May, 2003, as her second husband, Mrs Georgianna Sarah Preston (nee Tomkins, born 1955), by whom he had a son, Edmund Robert Spencer Bernard (born 25 Sept, 2001). 

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Erica Mackay Fielding (née Geddes) 1947-2026

 Erica Mackay Fielding (née Geddes), who died 23 January, 2026, aged 78, was descended from the father of the 1st Baron Geddes, and was a kinswoman of Margaret Campbell Geddes, who married Prince Ludwig of Hesse & the Rhine.

She was born 2 May, 1947, daughter of Acland Mackay Geddes (1907-1974), and his wife the former Barbara Sanford, and was a granddaughter of Sir Eric Campbell Geddes, GCB, GBE, MP, PC (1875-1937). She was a cousin (once removed) of Margaret Geddes (1913-97), known as "Peg" Hesse, who was a success in the difficult role of a non- royal foreign bride in an ancient German dynasty, despite her lack of children and the outbreak of the Second World War. Her cheerfulness, efficiency and sense of fun helped. Her house at Wolfsgarten, a Hesse "hunting lodge" the size of a small Oxford college, became an oasis of calm in the turmoil of the war and the Allied occupation.

Erica Geddes married firstly in 1972, Simon Peter Agace (born 1942); and married 2ndly, in 1992 (div 2007), Capt Martin George Rudolf Fielding (born 2 May, 1945), of Middleton Tyas, North Yorkshire, son of Maj George Rudolf Hanbury Fielding, DSO (1915-2005), and his wife the former Beatrice Georgina Pope (who died 15 March, 1995). Her husband was a direct descendent of the great writer Henry Fielding, and a scion of the Earls of Denbigh & Desmond.

She leaves issue from her first marriage, Caroline Mackay Agace (born 1973), Piers Edward M Agace (born  1975), and Dominic Charles M Agace (born 1979).

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The Baron Triesman 1943-2026

 Lord Triesman, a former Labour minister and ex-chairman of the Football Association, died 30 January, 2026, at the age of 82. 

Labour’s leader in the House of Lords, Baroness Smith, led tributes to her former colleague, whom she described as “respected and loved by his colleagues for his courtesy, kindness, wisdom, loyalty and generosity of spirit”. The former prime minister Sir Tony Blair meanwhile said the peer was a “vital part of the New Labour movement”.

David Maxim Triesman, Baron Triesman (born 30 October 1943) was a politician, merchant banker and trade union leader. Triesman was a Labour member of the House of Lords. He previously sat as a Labour peer until resigning the whip in July 2019, then having previously been a minister in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He sat non-affiliated in the House of Lords until 2020 when he rejoined Labour. Triesman was chairman of the Football Association from 2008 to 2010.

He was raised to the peerage for life on 9 January 2004, and his title was gazetted in the name, style and title of Baron Triesman, of Tottenham in the London Borough of Haringey.

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