Terence Plunket, 6th Baron Plunket

Who was Terence Plunket, 6th Baron Plunket?

Terence Conyngham Plunket, 6th Baron Plunket was the son of William Lee Plunket, 5th Baron Plunket of Newton and Lady Victoria Alexandrina Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood.

He became 6th Baron Plunket of Newtown on the death of his father on 24 January 1920.

On 4 December 1922, he married Dorothé Mabel Barnato, widow of Captain Jack Barnato and the illegitimate daughter of actress Fannie Ward and Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry.

The Plunkets died in 1938 in a plane crash in California. After planning a stay of several weeks in California, they had arrived in Hollywood around the 11th of February, 1938. They had rented the mansion of former screen comedian William Haines. As guests of publicist William Randolph Hearst, Plunket, his wife and their travelling companion, James Lawrence, a son of Sir Walter Lawrence of London, boarded a plane owned by Hearst's San Francisco and Los Angeles newspapers. They were bound for the Hearst ranch at San Simeon, now known as Hearst Castle. In the coastal fog surrounding the airstrip on the ranch, the pilot overshot the field by nearly a mile and a half. One wing struck the ground, causing the plane to burst into flames and crash. James Lawrence was the only survivor, having been thrown clear of the plane. He suffered burns and a broken ankle.