Robert Worth Bingham
| Robert Worth Bingham | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | November 8, 1871 Orange County, North Carolina |
| Died | December 18, 1937 (aged 66) Baltimore, Maryland |
| Residence | Glenview, Kentucky |
| Education | University of Louisville School of Law |
| Occupation | Politician, diplomat |
| Spouse(s) | Eleanor Miller |
| Children | Barry Bingham, Sr., Robert, Henrietta |
Robert Worth Bingham (November 8, 1871 – December 18, 1937) was a politician, judge, newspaper publisher and United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He attended the University of North Carolina and University of Virginia but did not graduate. He moved to Louisville in the 1890s and received a law degree from the University of Louisville in 1897. He formed his own practice with W.W. Davies.
Bingham married into a wealthy family in 1896. He became involved in Louisville politics as a registered Democrat, and was appointed interim mayor of the city in 1907 after election fraud invalidated the 1905 election. His corruption-busting tactics in his 6-month term alienated him from the local political machine and the Democratic Party in general, and he chose not to run in the general election.
He ran unsuccessfully for the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1910 as a Republican, and as a Democrat for Fiscal Court in 1917. He was appointed to the Jefferson Circuit Court in 1911 and was known as "Judge Bingham" for the rest of his life.
Bingham's first wife Eleanor Miller died in 1913. She was a passenger with her children in a car driven by her brother. Accounts vary, but either the car was crossing railroad tracks and was hit by a speeding commuter train or Eleanor jumped out of the car as it crossed the tracks. Her father Samuel Miller had committed suicide in this manner nineteen years earlier. Her son Barry later said he could remember Eleanor pushing him out of her lap and jumping from the car. She was survived by three children: Robert Norwood Bingham (his middle name was later changed to Worth, making him Robert Worth Bingham Jr), George Barry Bingham, and Henrietta Worth Bingham.
In 1916 Bingham married Mary Lily Flagler, reputedly the wealthiest woman in America at the time and widow of Henry Morrison Flagler. She died within a year, and although there was never any evidence of it, Bingham's enemies and some of his relatives would long claim he was somehow to blame for her death. As the family business crumbled publicly in the 1980s, several biographers, most notably David Leon Chandler and Mary Lily's step-granddaughter Sallie Bingham claimed Bingham had killed his wife for the money, either by overdose or withholding medical care. Immediately before falling ill, Mary Lily had added a codicil to her will, giving Bingham five million dollars outright (rather than the investment fund for him she had originally planned). Allegations of murder haunted Bingham for many years. While acknowledging these theories were at least plausible, more mainstream sources, from the Filson Club's respected quarterly publication to The New York Times, dismissed the allegations as impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
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