William Sackville, 10th Earl De La Warr

William Herbrand Sackville, 10th Earl De La Warr DL (/ˈdɛləwɛər/ (listen) DEL-ə-wair; 16 October 1921 – 9 February 1988) was a British peer. He inherited the earldom on 28 January 1976 on the death of his father Herbrand Edward Dundonald Brassey Sackville, 9th Earl De La Warr.[1]

Earl De La Warr was educated at Eton College, and fought in World War II, attaining the rank of Captain in the Parachute Regiment of the British Army.[1] After the war, on 18 May 1946, he married Anne Rachel Devas (grandniece of a former Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman). They had three children:[1]

• William Herbrand Sackville, 11th Earl De La Warr, born 10 April 1948
• Hon. Thomas Geoffrey Sackville, born 26 October 1950
• Lady Arabella Avice Diana Sackville, born 20 June 1958

In the autumn of 1987, the earl offered to sell Ashdown Forest, the real-life setting of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, to the East Sussex County Council at a below-market price of £1.2 million for the 6,500 acre property.[2][3] As young children, the future earl and Christopher Robin Milne had played together there.[4][5] Milne himself joined conservationists to prevent the forest from being sold piecemeal to private owners, and to oppose an application by BP to drill for oil there.[3][6] The sale to the county council was concluded after the earl's death, making the forest public land.[3]

In September 1981, the Earl allowed Doctor Who to film on the estate for the episode Black Orchid.[7]

On 9 February 1988, at age 66, Earl De La Warr died after falling under a train at the St. James's Park station of the London Underground.[2][8] An inquest ruled the death to be a suicide, with a jury finding that the earl had been "anxious and upset over hurricane damage to his estate."[9]