With family drama, intrigue and backstabbing in abundance, Netflix‘s House of Guinness series is being hailed as the streaming giant’s answer to Succession, but it already has one up on the exploits of the Roy family.
The new programme – stars James Norton, David Wilmot, Louis Partridge and Anthony Boyle – is is based on the real-life Guinness family after the death of patriarch Benjamin Guinness.
The series follows the family in 19th century Ireland and New York and focuses on his four children, Arthur, Edward, Anne and Ben.
The stout, synonymous with Ireland, was first made in Dublin in the 1700s by Arthur Guinness.
But, it’s not all been easy for the family, who are said to have been hit by a ‘Guinness curse’ after a startling string of scandals.
From a scandalous marriage between Nazi sympathisers Diana and Oswald Mosley to armed robberies and a certain number of suspicious deaths, the personal losses faced by the Guinnesses have become so infamous that it is thought to be ‘cursed’, despite holding a fortune of over £900million today.
Creator Steven Knight commented: ‘The Guinness dynasty is known the world over – wealth, poverty, power, influence, and great tragedy are all intertwined to create a rich tapestry of material to draw from.
‘I’ve always been fascinated by their stories and am excited to bring the characters to life for the world to see.’
Daphne Guinness revealed she sold her London home after it was repeatedly burgled by armed raiders
After meeting at a garden party in 1932, Diana, who was born 17 June 1910 and died 11 August 2003, and Mosley (pictured together during the early 1940s), who was born 16 November 1896 and died 3 December 1980, embarked on an affair
Honor Uloth, the 19-year-old heiress who tragically drowned in 2020
The start of the Guinness dynasty and its tragic beginnings
In 1759 Arthur Guinness used the £100 inheritance left to him by his godfather to found the family business at St James’s Gate in Dublin.
He famously signed a 9,000 year lease for the brewery – clearly supremely confident that the family business would be a roaring success. The annual rent was fixed at £45.
The business received a further boost at the age of 27, when he inherited the equivalent of four years’ wages from an Archbishop – a huge help considering he was from a poor background.
In the 1770s he began to brew ‘porter’, which became known as Guinness in the 1840s, and by his death in 1803, he was the richest man in Ireland.
These days, the Guinness Storehouse – still on the original site – is one of Dublin’s most frequented tourist attractions.
Arthur Guinness was behind the dynasty of the legendary family – but also began its ‘curse’
You may think that this meant the Guinness family was off to a prosperous start, but in fact Arthur’s personal life was marred by tragedy.
He fathered 21 children – but 10 of them died before him. Though this was not uncommon at the time, it was still a devastating tragedy for the businessman, and signalled the strife to come for the family.
He did not live to see many of his grandchildren – who turned to drink, with some ending up in mental institutions.
At a time when the business had not yet fully taken off, others returned to dire poverty, unable to make a name for themselves.
Scandalous Nazi marriage and imprisonment 
Diana (pictured with Oswald later in life) ‘became arguably the most hated woman in England for a while’
Scandal was brought into the Guinness family name from early on with the marriage of Diana Guinness (born Mitford) and Oswald Mosley.
Diana was a Mitford girl, who married into the Guinness family with her first husband Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne, as they were both part of the social set ‘The Bright Young Things’.
But, after meeting at a garden party in 1932, Diana, who was born 17 June 1910 and died 11 August 2003, and Mosley, who was born 16 November 1896 and died 3 December 1980, embarked on an affair.
The former was still married to her first husband Bryan Guinness, heir to the brewing fortune, and the latter was wed to Lady Cynthia Curzon, a daughter of Lord Curzon.
Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists from 1932, wouldn’t divorce his wife for Diana, but in 1933, Cynthia died of peritonitis.
Diana gave up all of society – she had been one of its darlings as a beautiful, newly married, rich young woman – when she left her first husband for Mosley.
Diana’s behaviour scandalised her family and they refused to support her choice to leave Bryan for Mosley, with the sister becoming briefly estranged.
She arguably become the ‘most hated woman in England for a while’, before marrying Mosley in a secret ceremony in Nazi Germany in 1936 in Joseph Goebbels’ drawing room.
The couple returning to the Shaven Crown Hotel in Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire, where they are living under house arrest on 13 December 1943
In May 1940, as Hitler swept through France, Mosley (pictured in 1936) was imprisoned in Brixton under Defence Regulation 18b, which meant the Home Secretary could jail ‘any particular person if satisfied that it is necessary to do so’
Hitler was the only other guest, reportedly gifting them a photograph of himself in an eagle-topped silver frame. Diana would remain sympathetic to Hitler all her life.
Recalling her second husband, Diana said she ‘never regretted’ the steps she took to be married to him.
‘He had every gift, being handsome, generous, intelligent, and full of wonderful gaiety and joie de vivre.
‘Of course I fell in love with him… and I have never regretted the step I took then,’ reported The Telegraph.
In May 1940, as Hitler swept through France, Mosley was imprisoned in Brixton under Defence Regulation 18b, which meant the Home Secretary could jail ‘any particular person if satisfied that it is necessary to do so’.
And even though the Mitfords were cousins of Clementine Churchill, the wife of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Diana could not escape also being arrested.
MI5 documents released in 2002 described Lady Mosley as ‘wildly ambitious’, stating: ‘Diana Mosley, wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, is reported on the “best authority”, that of her family and intimate circle, to be a public danger at the present time.
‘Is said to be far cleverer and more dangerous than her husband and will stick at nothing to achieve her ambitions.’
Throughout her later life, Diana (pictured left) remained vague when discussing her loyalties to Britain and her strong belief in fascism as well as her relationship with Hitler
When she appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1989, she caused controversy by saying she hadn’t believed Hitler had been exterminating Jews until ‘years’ after the war and refuted six million, the number of people who died, as ‘not conceivable’. Pictured, Diana speaking at a meeting on behalf of her husband Mosley
Diana Mitford (played by Amber Anderson, above) and Oswald Mosley (played by Sam Claflin, above) in Peaky Blinders
As a result, during World War Two she was locked up as an enemy to the Allies in Holloway Prison at the end of June 1940.
When asked by her lawyer if she was aware of anyone in the government who could help her, she replied: ‘Know anyone in the government? I know all the Tories beginning with Churchill. The whole lot deserve to be shot.’
Eventually Diana’s brother Tom intervened, using his connection with the Prime Minister, and Mosley was permitted to join his wife in married quarters at Holloway in December 1941.
In November 1943, the couple were released due to Mosley’s health and placed under house arrest until the end of the war.
Following the end of WWII, Diana and Mosley lived on a farm in Wiltshire, where they were reportedly largely ignored by local residents. They also cruised the Mediterranean. They then moved to Paris, where they were neighbours with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Throughout her later life, Diana remained vague when discussing her loyalties to Britain and her strong belief in fascism as well as her relationship with Hitler.
When she appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1989, she caused controversy by saying she hadn’t believed Hitler had been exterminating Jews until ‘years’ after the war and refuted six million, the number of people who died, as ‘not conceivable’.
According to her obituary in The Telegraph, she was an ‘unrepentant Nazi’ and a diamond swastika was found among her jewels.
Meanwhile she also said she ‘approved’ of Hitler, saying: ‘Hitler was attractive, though not handsome, with great inner dynamism and charm.
‘Charm can mean so many things; I don’t suppose I’ve met anyone quite so charming. It might be just that he was powerful, I suppose, but it seemed more than that.’
Assassination in Egypt 
Lord Moyne, Walter Edward Guinness was an Anglo-Irish politician and businessman – but for many he marks the true start of the Guinness curse
The funeral procession of British Minister Resident in the Middle East, Walter Edward Guinness in 1944
Lord Moyne, Walter Edward Guinness, was an Anglo-Irish politician and businessman – but for many he marks the true start of the Guinness curse.
The Guinness family member was a close friend of Winston Churchill, with the two becoming political allies.
He served as the British minister of state in the Middle East until November 1944, when he was assassinated by the terror group the Stern Gang in Cairo.
The shocking attack was planned as members of the group waited near his home, killing his chauffeur first.
Lord Moyne was then shot three times: once just above the clavicle, one bullet penetrated his abdomen while the third went through his chest.
Despite being given blood transfusions, he died of his injuries aged 64.
After his death, Churchill wrote in a letter about the loss of ‘a great friend of mine in public and private’ and ‘a great and wise servant’.
His death led to concerns from MI5 that terrorists might try to target other leading British politicians.
Tragic suicide 
Mrs David Nugent (Elizabeth Nugent) is pictured with her sister Lady Henrietta Guinness (right)
Lady Henrietta Guinness jumped off the the Ponte delle Torri bridge in Umbria, Italy, in 1978 after never recovering from an Aston Martin car crash in the French Riviera.
She had sustained life-changing injuries during the drive with her boyfriend, the Chelsea Beetnik Michael Beeby.
In her later years, she moved to Italy with chef Luigi Marinori and gave birth to a daughter, after reported former marriages to Beeby, an Italian sous-chef and a hairdresser.
She was known to have been treated for depression in years previously, and had converted to Catholicism in these years.
She is known to have said once: ‘If I had been poor, I would have been happy,’ seeming to reference the idea that the lives of the Guinnesses have been marred by misfortune and tragic circumstance.
The legacy of Henrietta’s death was followed by another example of the curse that same year – as four-year-old Peter Guinness tragically died in a car crash.
‘LSD-induced’ car crash that inspired a Beatles song 
The wreckage of the crash, which inspired The Beatles’s ‘A Day In The Life’
London-based socialite and Guinness heir Tara Browne was the driver of a Lotus Elan when it smashed into another car in South Kensington in December 1966.
Browne died of his injuries two hours later, aged just 21.
His passenger, girlfriend Suki Potier, later claimed that Browne wasn’t going particularly fast, but the young aristocrat was known to be ‘speed obsessed’.
He reportedly had pulled the steering wheel to save Suki and ensure that he received the full impact of the injuries instead.
‘A gentleman to the very end,’ said his friend, the model and actress Anita Pallenberg.
Browne was friends with the Beatles and is said to have introduced Paul McCartney to LSD in 1966 – and his story inspired their hit tune A Day In A Life.
‘I read the news today, oh boy,’ Lennon wrote in A Day In The Life. ‘About a lucky man who made the grade/. . . he blew his mind out in a car.’
John Lennon, who hadn’t known Tara well, had read about his death in the Daily Mail before going over to the piano and composing the song.
London-based socialite and Guinness heir Tara Browne was the driver of a Lotus Elan when it smashed into another car in South Kensington in December 1966
A Day In The Life is considered by many to be The Beatles’ greatest song.
Singer Marianne Faithfull, with whom Browne had ‘a little scene’ weeks before his death, would later describe the news of Tara’s fatal crash as ‘like a death knell sounding over London’.
Pallenberg, girlfriend of Tara’s close friend, the doomed Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, said that after Browne died, ‘the Sixties weren’t the Sixties any more’.
He had been seen as effortlessly cool, and the embodiment of the sixties spirit with his willingness to experiment with new drugs and driving around in his sports car.
It has never been concluded for certain whether Browne was high on drugs or drunk while driving, but he crashed when he failed to see a red traffic light.
Browne’s mother, Oonagh, was a member of the immensely rich Irish brewing dynasty, while his father was Dominick, an aristocrat.
Tara was born in 1945, and his parents divorced when he was young.
And at just 13 years old, he travelled everywhere in his mother’s chauffer-driven Rolls-Royce, and had a £720-a-month allowance at a time when the average wage was £546 per year.
At 18, he had travelled the world and was already married with a child. In his 20s, he was a main character in London’s social scenes, taking Paul McCartney into his circle of high-born friends.
Tara and his wife Nicki’s mews house in Eaton Row, Belgravia, became the centre of an after-hours scene.
However, in tragic foreshadowing of his death, he spent most of 1966 disqualified from driving after receiving a speeding ticket, and by the end of the year he was suffering from marriage troubles.
In December, he finally received his licence back – and went for the fateful drive with his new girlfriend Suki.
Several witnesses claimed he flew past them, accelerating and braking fast, while the car made a loud noise. This was followed by a loud bang, before the sound of the engine stopped altogether.
Tara suffered a fractured skull and lacerations to his brain but Suki survived with bruises and shock.
She held Tara dying in her arms for 45 minutes as she waited for an ambulance, before he was eventually taken to St Stephen’s Hospital in Fulham. Two hours later, he was pronounced dead.
Heiress drowning 
Honor Uloth is pictured with her father Rupert. Her death in 2020 was another shock for the Guinness family
Honor – a history of art student at Oxford Brookes university – was the eldest daughter of Lady Louisa Jane Guinness, and her husband Rupert Uloth, the former editor of Country Life Magazine.
A coroner ruled her death was a tragic accident after she was found at the bottom of the pool during a family barbecue.
Her 15-year-old brother Rufus dived in to help her. He pulled her out, but doctors were unable to save her, and she suffered a broken shoulder and brain injuries that would prove fatal.
She died in hospital six days later, an inquest heard later.
Honor had expressed wishes for her organs to be donated – and her family later revealed her actions had saved four lives, and turned around the lives of ten more.
Her family said at the time: ‘We have lost a daughter and sister who brought untold light and joy into our lives. She was so full of fun, laughter, kindness and adventure.
‘She had this knack of bringing people together and making them feel good.’
‘She always made it clear that if anything happened to her, she would like her organs to be donated to those in need.
‘The doctors say that, with the matches they have found, it looks like she is going to help save four lives and seriously enhance ten more.’
On July 31, 2020, four families were at the barbecue at a £3.5million mansion overlooking Chichester Harbour in Sussex.
Ice buckets filled with bottles of wine, beer and non-alcoholic drinks were dotted around the large grounds that had a climbing frame, a tennis court, a firepit and a large pool with an attached hot tub, the inquest at Crawley Coroner’s Court was told.
Miss Uloth, who had not been drinking alcohol, was soaking in the hot tub with two friends before going for a swim around 11pm.
Coroner’s officer Geoff Charnock told the hearing: ‘Altogether there were 19 people present at the barbecue consisting of four families. These families have all known each other for many years and have had many gatherings and barbecues together.
‘During the course of the evening there was music playing and everyone was enjoying themselves in the warm weather. The other two young ladies remained in the hot tub and they were looking out onto the harbour with their backs to the pool and did not see where Honor went.
‘A short while later, Honor’s brother was walking back towards the hot tub…and saw her lying at the bottom of the pool. He raised the alarm and rescued her from the pool. The adults commenced CPR while an ambulance was called.’
Paramedics managed to keep her alive and she was rushed to St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester before being transferred to St Thomas’s Hospital in London, where she died ‘quietly and peacefully’ on August 6.
Mr Charnock said: ‘Police conducted an investigation…but no one saw what happened to Honor or knew how she came to be lying at the bottom of the pool.’
He said one police theory was Miss Uloth had leaped off a rock used as a jumping platform and somehow hit her head on it.
Another was she had slipped on the wet surface and banged her head, while a third theory was she had jumped into the pool and then hit her head, as she surfaced, on a raised lip around the pool which people can sit on. Senior Coroner Penelope Schofield said: ‘I record a conclusion of accident.’
She was the eldest of three children by Mr Uloth, a former deputy editor of Country Life magazine, and her mother, Lady Louisa, whose father Benjamin Guinness was the chairman of the brewery empire from 1962 to 1986 and then its president until his death in 1992.
Death from unspecified illness 
The most recent tragedy is that of Henry Channon (pictured), who passed away in 2021 aged 51 from an ‘unspecified illness’
The most recent tragedy is that of Henry Channon, who passed away in 2021 aged 51 from an ‘unspecified illness’.
Henry – the grandson or Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Cannon – was a publisher in London and a member of the Guinness dynasty.
Friends said that Channon had battled with an illness for several months before his death.
His untimely death was not the first time he had faced misfortune; he was only 16 when his sister Olivia died of a drugs overdose in Oxford. His death means that their sister Georgia is the only surviving sibling.
Their father Paul Channon, later Lord Kelvedon, served as a Cabinet minister in the Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher governments.
Lord Kelvedon was the son of American-born diarist Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon and Lady Honor Guinness, and inherited her share of the Guinness family wealth.
A friend of the Channon family told the Daily Mail: ‘Henry had not been well for some time, but his death has come as a tremendous shock to his family and friends.
‘He was a completely wonderful man. His family are devastated. He and his wife Katie have two small children.
Lord Kelvedon, formerly Paul Channon with his wife Ingrid Channon and children Henry Channon, Georgia Channon and Olivia Channon
Valentine Guinness and girlfriend Lucinda Rivett-Carnac attending the funeral of Olivia Channon in 1986
Paul Channon, Ingrid, Henry, and Georgina and the funeral of Olivia Channon in 1986
‘Katie is immensely brave and resourceful, but she is distraught.’
Mr Channon and wife Katie married in 2009 and have two young children. He also has two sons by his previous marriage.
Mr Channon’s privileged upbringing was overshadowed by the shock death of his sister Olivia.
The 22-year-old history student binged on alcohol and drugs at a party thrown by a friend in his room at Christ Church College and choked to death after she vomited while unconscious.
Her death stunned the country and lifted the lid on Class A drug use among the privileged elite.
She died in the rooms of Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was later given a small fine for possession of drugs.
He died in 2007 after overdosing on heroin.
Olivia’s cousin Sebastian Guinness, also at the party, was jailed for four months for possession and her best friend Rosie Johnston received a nine-month sentence for supplying drugs.
Affairs and divorces 
Mary is now married to Finn Guinness (pictured together) after a scandalous affair
An affair kept secret for 30 years revealed that the children of author J.P. Donleavy and Mary Wilson Price were actually fathered by two brothers of the Guinness Brewing Dynasty.
The couple welcomed babies Rebecca and Rory while married.
Rebecca’s father was actually Kieran Guinness, while Rory’s was Kieran’s brother Finn.
Finn and Mary eventually married in 1989, and Rebecca and Rory took the Guinness name.
Meanwhile in 2021, the Guinness family made headlines once more when the Countess of Iveagh split from Edward Guinness.
The Reading-born interior designer’s split from the head of the Guinness family signified one of Britain’s biggest ever divorces – with more than £900million at stake.
A friend close to the Countess and Earl of Iveagh said at the time: ‘Clare and Ned were a great couple but she has been unhappy for several years and doesn’t feel their marriage has been a priority for him for a long time.’
Meanwhile, a person familiar with the running of the 22,500-acre Elveden Estate claimed: ‘His lordship is is often seen in the company of women.
‘Word in the village is that he hosted one of them in the local pub.’
Property raids, school bullying and a foiled kidnap attempt 
Daphne at the McQueen Spring/Summer 2025 show during Paris Fashion Week in September
Brewery heiress Daphne Guinness – sometimes known as Britain’s ‘most eccentric aristocrat’ – has lived a life impinged by tragedy, beginning in her schooldays.
In November she made headlines after revealing she was forced to sell her London home after it was repeatedly burgled by armed raiders.
She told the Mail’s Richard Eden: ‘It actually happened three times – knives and baseball bats.
‘They really threatened the poor postman on the way out – that’s how I found out about the knives. The milkman was also threatened. They pumped gas into the house to make sure no one woke up.’
‘When I was burgled at knifepoint, the police did absolutely nothing,’ Guinness claimed. ‘I was not allowed to protect myself and, of course, it happened again. We live in an upside-down world.’
She explains: ‘It’s the reason I moved out of London back then. I tried everything to secure the house, as I was either alone or, in term times, with my three children. I couldn’t risk it.
‘I tried, but I wasn’t allowed to make the changes I needed to by the council.
‘And, most importantly but outrageously, the police discouraged me from making the walls more perilous in case another gang got injured.
Brewery heiress Daphne Guinness opened up about her difficult childhood in an interview with The Times (pictured in June)
Daphne (pictured in 2018), 57, is the youngest daughter of banker and brewery heir Jonathan Guinness, Lord Moyne, and the beautiful French actress Suzanne Lisney
‘It’s really idiotic and makes no sense. I regretted selling that house terribly, but there was nothing I could do.
‘I got to the point where I was living with the shutters closed and unable to live a normal life. I think it’s worse now.’
She adds: ‘I actually managed to do a lot of the police work, I identified one of the gangs and the fences they used in Hatton Garden, they were arrested then absconded – unbelievable.’
She was reported to have sold her home in St John’s Wood, north London, for £17.5million in 2008.
Daphne, 57, is the youngest daughter of banker and brewery heir Jonathan Guinness, Lord Moyne, and the beautiful French actress Suzanne Lisney.
Daphne has previously spoken out about how her parents were ‘distant’ and ‘never really looked after me’ in an interview with The Times.
Her time at boarding school at St Mary’s in Oxfordshire didn’t help either as strict rules and staff meant she couldn’t confide in her peers.
She told the newspaper: ‘The teachers and the girls at school didn’t really understand or believe me when I told them how I really lived.
Daphne, now known as one of the ‘most eccentric aristocrats’, is pictured in 1999
Daphne’s parents: British peer and businessman Jonathan Guinness and his second wife Suzanne outside their Kensington home, London, 10th January 1964
Daphne Guinness attends The Fashion Awards 2023 presented by Pandora at the Royal Albert Hall
Guinness and fashion designer Alexander McQueen in 2004, who passed away in 2010 aged 40
‘There was no point telling anybody anything about my home life because you were sent to detention for being a downright liar.’
Her distant parents also never reacted to a traumatic kidnapping that took place when Daphne was just five.
As a young girl she was taken hostage by Tony Baekeland – whose mother was friends with her own – in her parents’ house in Kensington when she was home alone.
He broke into the house and put a knife to her throat, dragging her out into the street.
Though the housekeeper eventually spotted her and intervened, it marked a very narrow escape for Daphne as Baekeland went on to kill his mother the very next day.
Though not close with her parents, Daphne was understandably rocked when she discovered her father had a second family with another woman, and her mother’s death from cancer in 2005. Daphne would also lose her half-brother Jasper from the same disease in 2011.
The Guinness heiress has lived a wild life in the circles of high fashion, with her closest friends including Kate Moss and American photographer David LaChapelle.
But loss would impact the friends she made through her career too, as her best friends fashion director Isabella Blow and the designer Alexander McQueen both took their own lives.
Dodging the curse? 
Lady Mary Charteris, 36,seems to be avoiding the curse of the Guinness family (pictured on holiday last summer)
Mary Charteris seems to have emerged from the grip of the family curse.
The socialite is the youngest child and only daughter of James Charteris and his first wife Catherine, who is the daughter of Guinness heir Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne.
Lady Mary has modelled for the likes of Tatler, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Love, and is now best known as a DJ and member of electronic rock band The Big Pink.
Her mother Catherine Guinness, of the Guinness dynasty, who was the daughter of Diana Mitford, once worked for Andy Warhol, and her father Jamie is the 13th Earl of Wemyss and 9th Earl of March. As a teenager, the Earl was Page of Honour to the Queen Mother.
As a child, Lady Mary was educated at Francis Holland, an all-girls private school in west London, which counts Poppy and Cara Delevingne and The Ecclestone sisters among its alumni.
The socialite has modelled for Tatler, Vanity Fair and Vogue and is now a DJ
IN FULL: TIMELINE OF THE GUINNESS CURSE
1700s: Guinness family business is founded by Arthur Guinness – but 10 of his 21 children pre-decease him.
1944: Lord Moyne is assassinated in Egypt.
1945: Hon Arthur Onslow Edward Guinness, the heir to the family’s business, is killed in action just weekes before the end of WW2.
1966: Tara Browne, son of Oonagh Guinness, dies after a car crash allegedly under the influence of LSD.
1966: Prince Frederick of Russia, husband of Lady Brigid Guinness, drowns in the Rhine aged 54.
1978: Lady Henrietta Guinness dies by suicide after jumping of a bridge in Italy. She is said never to have recovered from injuries from a car crash in the French Riveria.
1978: Peter Guinness, aged, four dies in a car crash.
1986 – Olivia Channon dies at the University of Oxford following a drugs overdose.
1988: Sheridan Blackwood dies of an Aids-related illness aged 49.
1988: John Guinness falls 500ft down Mount Snowdon in Wales, dying aged 52.
1998: Rose Nugent, 31, niece of Lady Henrietta Guinness, dies after being thrown from her caravan when her horse bolted.
2004: Robert Hesketh (son-in-law of Guinness heir Lord Moyne) dies aged 48 after taking a cocktail of drugs and alcohol at a house party.
July 2020: Honor Uloth (the granddaughter of Benjamin Guinness) is found drowned at the bottom of a pool in Chichester.
2021: Death of Henry Channon aged 51 from an ‘unspecified illness’.
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It was in her teens that she got into modelling after being introduced to the world famous agency Storm Models by the magazine editor and fashion muse Isabella Blow, who was an old family friend.
In her early twenties, Lady Mary met Robbie Furze from the band The Big Pink and the couple quickly became joined at the hip. Soon she was joining the group on their tours, selling T-shirts and helping with lighting.
Then in 2012, the couple married at her family estate in Stanway in Gloucestershire, in a bespoke Pam Hogg dress that featured cutaway panels to below her belly button.
Since then Lady Mary has become a permanent fixture in the Big Pink, replacing bandmate Dave McCracken when he left – Robbie wanted a female singer on some tracks and, having heard Mary sing in the car one day, suggested she had a go.
Once known as a wild party girl, the model/DJ/singer/IT Girl, who is mostly based in Los Angeles with her husband, has been sober for years.
Like many other grown-up society beauties, Lady Mary spent part of the Covid pandemic in the UK at her father’s estate of Stanway House, in Gloucestershire.She welcomed her daughter Wilde Jessie Furze on May 21 2021 and is often snapped soaking up the sun on glamorous getaways – seeming to mark the turning point in the family’s misfortune.