Retired USAF Staff Sgt. and R-MA Graduate Returns to Front Royal From The UK With Lordship Title

U.S. Air Force Iraq War veteran Malcolm Barr Jr., a graduate of Randolph-Macon Academy, left with his retiree dad for England on September 14 and returned last weekend, September 21, 2024, bearing the title “Lord Malcolm Barr Jr., of Stanton-by-Bridge” an English village of some 246 people according to its last census.

Malcolm Barr Sr., of Rockland Road in northern Warren County, a 91-year-old retired journalist and U.S. government public relations executive, accompanied his son to Derby, home of not only Rolls Royce, but also Malcolm Junior’s 86-year-old uncle Neville Barr about 15 minutes down the road from Stanton-by-Bridge . Neville was owner of the 800-year-old title to Stanton-by-Bridge, who for Junior’s 40th birthday conveyed the “Lordship of the Manor” title to his nephew at a party of family and friends.

Twenty years ago, Neville had purchased the historic document from a high-end estate sale where numerous titles from baron to lord had been sold to the highest bidders, a practice made necessary in England due to ultra-high inheritance taxes.

Following the title transfer, Malcolm Jr., received a bundle of historic documents, some referencing feudal estates, including Stanton-by-Bridge, back in the time of William the Conqueror in the year 1066. The earliest reference to Swarkestone Bridge, Stanton-by-Bridge’s actual “bridge” was 1204, with the majority of the existing bridge believed to date to the 13th and 14th centuries.

Neville Barr, left, in process of handing over historical documentation on the Stanton-by-Bridge ‘Lordship Manor’ to his nephew Malcolm Barr Jr. – Nice 40th birthday present!!!! Below, a long and closer look at the Swarkestone Bridge, the historic bridge referenced in Stanton-by-Bridge dating to the 13th century. Courtesy Photos the Barr family

The three Barrs, Neville and the two Malcolms, toured the village with a frequent visitor to Front Royal, Dr. Roger Willkes, the former headmaster of Malcolm Sr.’s high school, Queen Elizabeth’s, founded by the first queen of that name in the 16th century. Parenthetically it should be noted that Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, known locally as QEGS (is that pronounced kegs?), was for 10 years a sister school of Town of Front Royal (Va. USA)-based R-MA in that the two educational institutions traded visits by teams of up to 10 to 12 students traveling to each other’s countries and schools over the period.

Lord of the Manor Malcolm Barr Jr. plans to travel next year to meet members of the Stanton-by-Bridge community to share their knowledge of the historic village and his overview of his American upbringing with his British-born dad, and relationship with his Uncle Neville, now the former Lord of Stanton-by-Bridge. Malcolm Sr. was a U.S. immigrant from the UK in 1960.

For the next year, Barr Jr., has temporarily retired from his cyber security post in Hampton to temporarily live and travel with his aging but still out-and-about dad based out of Senior Malcolm’s Rockland Road residence.

History everywhere – Malcolm Jr. and Neville at an old Church entrance in Stanton-by-Bridge.

Have fun guys, and don’t forget a postcard or two when you’re in the field.

(Malcolm Barr Sr., a former Associated Press reporter in Honolulu and Washington, DC, is a contributing writer to the Royal Examiner.)