Reginald Swire

Reggie Swire
Biographical information
Died	Late December 1919
Marital status	widower
Residence	London
Family information
Family	Lavinia Swire (daughter) Jonathan Swire (brother)
Affiliation
Occupation	Solicitor
Behind the scenes
Portrayed by	Ed Pearce

Reginald "Reggie" Swire (d. late December, 1919) was a London solicitor and He was a widower with only one child, daughter Lavinia Swire. His brother Jonathan was Liberal Minister. It was through Reggie Swire that Lavinia met Matthew Crawley, heir to the Earl of Grantham, to whom she soon became engaged.

Once, Reginald was in debt to Sir Richard Carlisle and could not pay him back, though it is unknown why. Lavinia then went to Carlisle to plead on her father's behalf. Carlisle agreed if she would steal certain papers belonging to Jonathan, to which she agreed. The result was the exposure of the Marconi scandal.

In the Christmas special, Matthew learned Mr. Swire was ill and went to London to visit him before he died. His dying wish was for his ashes to be buried in his daughter's grave in Downton, a wish fulfilled by Matthew, with his mother and Lady Mary Crawley present.

In the third season, Matthew is contacted by Reginald's lawyer, Mr Charkham. Reggie had three possible heirs, of which Matthew was the third. The first died of Spanish flu, before Reggie died. The second died in India visiting some property he owned there. So, this made Matthew Reggie's definite heir. Matthew is not initially happy about this and feels he cannot accept the money; he cannot "dine in splendor" as he put it because he broke Lavinia's heart. Mary, Matthew's wife, felt this was ridiculous because Reggie's money could save the estate of Downton Abbey, which was on the brink of collapse because of a bad investment made by Robert Crawley.

Matthew and Mary disagreed about this. Mary discovered that Lavinia had written a letter to Reggie the day she died, explaining that she knew Matthew did not love her and that he was being noble because he was prepared to sacrifice his happiness and a life with Mary, his true love, to be with her because she had stayed true to him. Daisy posted this letter, unknown to the rest of the house at the time, and so Reggie knew that Lavinia would not have married Matthew even if she had lived and still he wanted him to be heir. Knowing this, Matthew invested all of Reggie's money into the estate and saved it from being sold by the Crawleys.