Edward Horace Fiennes-Clinton, 18th Earl of Lincoln (23 February 1913 – 7 July 2001) was an aristocratic Australian engineer, who succeeded to his family's earldom of Lincoln (cr. 1572) by primogeniture upon the death in 1988 of his 10th cousin, the last Duke of Newcastle.
Life
Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1913, he was the elder son of Edward Henry Fiennes-Clinton, a mate in the British Merchant Navy who emigrated to Australia in 1912 before serving with the 51st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force and being killed in action on 17 August 1916 during the First World War.
His mother, Edith Annie, daughter of Captain Horace Guest, brought him up before remarrying, in 1923, Robert Johnston Lynn, a cousin of Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland House of Commons, Sir Robert Lynn.
Educated at Hale School, an independent Anglican boarding school in Perth, Western Australia, Fiennes-Clinton then worked as a boilermaker, a welder's and machine-minder's assistant as well as a butcher at the Kalgoorlie Gold Mine.
The Australian press was much more excited by the news, and three camera crews appeared outside the new peer's flat at Elanora Villas, Bunbury, Western Australia, before more reporters arrived by helicopter. Soon after inheriting the Earldom, the new Lord Lincoln travelled to England, where he was warmly received by (among others) leading citizens of the City of Lincoln. The story was soon fictionalized as a storyline in the Australian soap opera Neighbours.
Family
In 1940, Fiennes-Clinton married Leila Ruth Fitzpatrick, née Millen, and they had two children, Patricia Ruth Fiennes-Clinton (born 1 February 1941, now Lady Patricia Elrick), and Edward Gordon Fiennes-Clinton (1943–99; styled Lord Fynes, by courtesy).
When his 10th cousin, the 10th and last Duke of Newcastle, died on Christmas Day 1988, Fiennes-Clinton succeeded to His Grace's subsidiary title of Earl of Lincoln. His ancestor, Sir Henry Clinton, of Kirkstead, Lincolnshire, was the 2nd Earl of Lincoln's elder son by his second marriage; the 2nd Earl's eldest son's descendants went on to become Dukes of Newcastle. The peerage of Baron Clinton, created by writ of summons, to which all descendants are in remainder, is now held by the Trefusis family.
Lincoln's grandson Robert Edward Fiennes-Clinton (born 19 June 1972) is the 19th and present earl.