Robin Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 8th Marquess of Londonderry

Edward Charles Stewart Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 8th Marquess of Londonderry, DL (18 November 1902 – 17 October 1955) was a British peer and politician.

Educated at Eton College, he was the only son of Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry and his wife, Edith Helen (née Chaplin). He worked as honorary attaché to the British Embassy in Rome and as a director of Londonderry Collieries, the family's coal mining company. A keen football fan, he was first a director and then chairman of Arsenal from 1939 to 1946. A portrait of him painted in 1911 as a pageboy at the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary by Philip de Laszlo hangs at Mount Stewart, County Down, the Londonderry ancestral seat in Northern Ireland.

Known formally by his courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh and as Robin by friends and family, he was an accomplished public speaker and was Unionist MP for County Down in the House of Commons from 1931 to 1945. He succeeded his father as Marquess in 1949.

He was married on 31 October 1931 at St Martin-in-the-Fields to Romaine Combe (d. 19 December 1951), the daughter of Major Boyce Combe, of Farnham, Surrey, and had issue:

Lord Londonderry was a celebrated host and practical joker, reportedly once decorating the Christmas tree at Wynyard with condoms to startle a visiting cleric. He was an attentive husband and devoted father, entertaining his family with stories and tales. Also regarded as slightly eccentric, on one occasion Lord Londonderry had taken to his bed after a few drinks too many, when Ruth Graham, the wife of the American evangelist Billy Graham, came to call. Although informed that His Lordship was "indisposed", Mrs Graham insisted upon admission to his bedroom, having "come all the way on Billy's account". She was duly announced. Lord Londonderry threw aside the bed-sheets and shouted, "Get in."

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