David Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan

David Michael James Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan (born 12 November 1952) is the heir apparent to the Marquessate of Ailesbury, and its subsidiary titles. These include Earl of Cardigan, which he currently uses as his courtesy title.

Family

The Earl of Cardigan is the son of Michael Brudenell-Bruce, 8th Marquess of Ailesbury and Edwina Sylvia de Winton Wills.

He married Rosamund Jane Winkley, daughter of Captain W. R. M. Winkley and Mrs Jane Winkley, in 1980, and has two children:

• Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, Viscount Savernake (born 1982)
• Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce (born 1984)

Education

Lord Cardigan attended Hawtreys prep-school, Eton College, Rannoch School, and the Royal Agricultural College.

Career

He has been Secretary of Marlborough Conservatives since 1985, and has been a Member of the Executive of the Devizes Constituency Conservative Association since 1988. Since 1987 he has been the 31st Hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest.

Battle of the Beanfield

Lord Cardigan witnessed the Battle of the Beanfield, a notorious incident in 1985 in which Wiltshire Police were accused of brutalising a convoy of travellers on land near Stonehenge. Largely as a result of his testimony, police charges against members of the convoy were dismissed in the Crown Court. That testimony against the police caused The Daily Telegraph to criticise him as a class traitor, for which they later apologised and paid damages. Cardigan later said:

I hadn’t realised that anybody that appeared to be supporting elements that stood against the establishment would be savaged by establishment newspapers. Now one thinks about it, nothing could be more natural. I hadn’t realised that I would be considered a class traitor; if I see a policeman truncheoning a woman I feel I’m entitled to say that it is not a good thing you should be doing. I went along, saw an episode in British history and reported what I saw.^[1]

References

1. ^ Carey, Jim. "A Criminal Culture?". Dreamflesh. http://dreamflesh.com/essays/crimculture/. Retrieved 28 March 2011. 

• thePeerage.com
• ‘CARDIGAN, Earl of’, Who's Who 2008, A & C Black, 2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007

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Name	Cardigan, David Brudenell-Bruce, Earl Of
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Date of birth	12 November 1952
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