The family of the mysterious Lord Lucan were once regular visitors to Queensland’s Darling Downs. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

Before you start emailing about Lord Lucan living in a Buddhist commune in Brisbane, the Australian Federal Police investigated and it wasn’t him. This Darling Downs connection to Lord Lucan is whole new research and stretches back to the 19th century.

The story begins with Hovenden Hely who was born in Ireland in 1823. He became an Australian explorer and politician. Hely’s father Frederick Augustus Hely was the first Superintendent in Chief of convicts in Sydney.

Hely’s brother was a barrister who became a Queensland District Court judge. One of his sisters married a paymaster in the Fleet, joined the Civil Service and became Chairman of the Queensland Civil Service Board.

Another sister married a major in the Royal Artillery who became the Commissary-General which is one of the highest-ranking administrative and supply officers in the British Army. And another sister married a Royal Horse Artillery officer who became Superintendent of the Cockatoo Island penal settlement in Sydney Harbour.

But most interestingly, Hely’s mother Georgina was a direct descendent of the 5^th Baronet, Sir John Bingham. Another direct descendent was Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan. He’s better known as Lord Lucan who sensationally went missing after murdering the family’s nanny and attempting to murder his wife in Belgravia, London, in 1974.

That means our Hovenden Hely and Lord Lucan are cousins.

Now about Hely himself. He inherited part of his father’s estate and borrowed against it to finance a holiday to England, as a result he was bankrupted. Hely was elected in the first New South Wales Legislative Assembly, but his parliamentary performance was so uninspiring that he didn’t even bother to contest the next election. Hely took part in the 1846 expedition of Ludwig Leichhardt but was accused by Leichhardt of insolence, disloyalty and “disgusting” behaviour.

All up, Hely appears to have been pretty much completely useless. But importantly for this story, he had a close relationship to the Darling Downs.

Leichhardt’s expedition with Hely started in 1846. It was supposed to go from Cecil Plains on the Darling Downs to the west coast of Australia and ultimately to Perth. But after only 800 kilometres they were forced to turn back due to heavy rain, malarial fever and famine. Hely was one of those who nearly mutinied, and Leichhardt seems to have had a nervous breakdown. The Aboriginal guide took over as leader and brought them all safely back to Cecil Plains.

This was Leichhardt’s second expedition, his third attempt in 1848 is the one on which he famously disappeared.

Despite Hely’s disdain for Leichhardt, he was put in charge of the official expedition to find the missing explorer in 1852, which unsurprisingly was unsuccessful.

Hely and a party of six started out again from the Darling Downs in search of Leichhardt. The local indigenous mob must have also thought that Hely was useless, because they sent him on a wild goose chase to some old sheep bones left by Major Mitchell on the Maranoa, the Western Downs. Despite having twelve months’ provisions, Hely gave up after only six months and returned to the Balonne.

So Hovenden Hely, who was a relative of Lord Lucan and associate of Leichhardt, was a regular and unsuccessful visitor to the Darling Downs. Both Lucan and Leichhardt disappeared never to be seen again.

Another interesting fact relevant to Queensland history is that Hely’s mother Georgina, the family’s closest link to Lord Lucan, she’s one of those buried underneath the football arena Lang Park, in what was once the old Paddington cemetery.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON 4AK.

Photo credits:
The Earls Cousin Who Lost Leichhardt – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Frederick Augustus Hely – Central Coast Family History Society Facebook page, 2020.
Sir John Bingham 5th Bt by Robert Hunter – The Peerage website.
Lord and Lady Lucan, 1963 – The Peerage website.
Ludwig Leichhardt – National Library of Australia.