We wrote last year of a Gary M. Beaver who described himself as Lord Newport on the strength of having acquired "a styled titled name and legend" registered as a trademark under that name. (He described himself also as Baron de Richecourt on the basis of paying to one of the Burke's Peerage companies a ten per cent deposit for the title, and he used the design pictured here on the right as his "coat of arms".)

There is, of course, a genuine Lord Newport ~ Viscount Newport, whose senior title is Earl of Bradford, and whose eldest son, as his heir, is allowed the use of the junior title. Lord Bradford was not pleased to find someone misappropriating his privilege, and after hearing his views on the matter The Daily Mail, a British newspaper with national circulation, decided on 10th November to print the story.

Reading University philosophy student Viscount Newport, better known to his fellow undergrads as plain Alexander Newport, will be astonished to learn that someone else appears to be using the same title. He is one Gary, Baron of Richecourt, who also calls himself Lord Newport on his e-mail address - a fact discovered by Alexander's father, the Earl of Bradford. Says Richard Bradford, owner of Porters in Covent Garden: "A friend drew my attention to this chap's website. I think it is appalling, and I have e-mailed him, asking what claim he has to the title. "Even if he bought himself a lordship of a manor, he can't call himself Lord Newport. There is only one person entitled to do that, my son - although, ironically, Alexander never actually uses his title." Alexander will eventually inherit his father's 12,000-acre estate in Shropshire, but not the family's Palladian stately home, Weston Park. That was placed in the hands of a charitable foundation to secure the house following £8 million in death duties owed when his grandfather, the 6th Earl, died in 1991. The other "Lord Newport", I discover, is computer expert Gary Beaver, who was born in sylvan Surrey at Walton-on-Thames, but who now lives in Belgium. However, his telephone number in Brussels is a spare line, and a website he set up, which charged surfers £300-a-year to join his self-styled order of chivalry, has been shut down following complaints by the Manorial Society. © 2000 The Daily Mail, London

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