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The Mystery and Origins of the Name ‘Angeline Lodge-Croft’ and Other Biographical Information

For those who don’t yet know, this is the supposed name of Lara Croft’s mother in the Core Design games. We have decided to research into the origins of this name as we have never heard of it prior to the Pix ‘n’ Love ‘L’histoire de Tomb Raider’ book written by Alexandre Serel. In writing the encyclopedia, we had thought that we had seen everything that there was to see and know in the Tomb Raider franchise and TR history. If it turns out to be an official fact, then we will need to add it into Lara’s biography. This is going to be a long, long post but please bear with it and please click on the links and make this interactive! We like to point out a lot of examples and sources to come up with an accurate as possible conclusion, so stay with us. And if you don't have time to read the whole thing, skip to the bottom and read the last few paragraphs. And so the adventure begins...

We’d think that it would be fair enough to say that this fact of Lara’s mother's name does not appear on the official Core Design websites, Tomb Raider websites or the Eidos website. For some people this is enough to discredit it as unofficial but we are going to continue digging to find out why it appears and where it originates. Because of this, we have to turn to fan sites, but first, the quote from the book goes as follows:

"Her parents had plans to engage her with a certain count of Farringdon, but Lara refuses that arranged marriage. The consequences are immediate: Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft disowns her daughter in benefit of her dog, a yorkshire named Brighton!"

There are other points in the beginning chapters of this book that we also have difficulty in believing but that will be for another day. We should also add in that we do not know if Alexandre himself believes if this is part of an official biography or if he has just picked this point just to show the varying information but that is why we are trying to find its origin. Now in writing his book, Serel had spoken with a few of Core Design’s employees and had seen documents that were [then] not available to the public. He does also add a short list of sources in the back. Two particular missing people that would have been good to have spoken to was Vicky Arnold and Susie Hamilton. Susie was Core’s PR manager since 1993 and she wrote the Tomb Raider Official Files and she knew her stuff about Lara. Vicky on the other hand was a script writer for Core Design on the Tomb Raiders (1-3) and she also became the voice of Lara in press interviews, answering questions as Lara and providing a back story to Lara. Now sadly for that extract above, Serel does not provide any solid source for this particular fact or if he has included it as part of an official biography however he does acknowledge that there are several contradictions in Lara’s biography. Others mentioned in the book are her parents’ Yorkshire terror called Brighton and Lara having a diploma in archaeology. These additional ‘unofficial’ points don’t appear in any official biography that we have seen and as you will soon see, we have explored the vast history of fan sites.

Places That Show a Mother's Name

So now we are going to list out a few of the fan sites that we have found this information (or similar information) on. We would like to add that we have seen this information on very few English fan sites and a Google search for ‘Lara Croft Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft’ will present you with a list of mostly French fan sites that mention the mother’s name (plus a modern day mention on TR fan Tumblrs). This must be more than a coincidence.

http://www.captain-alban.com/larabio.html - Captain-Alban. Dated present day. This website is a very well known website, even to non-French speaking fans. You will notice that this French website lists classic Lara’s biography as unofficial. This would have to do with Crystal’s biography having to be taken as the now official biography. But look at the unofficial bio; it says:

‘Lara, born February 14, 1967, is the daughter of Lord Henshingly Croft and Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft.’

And see that it also has a date for two of Lara’s non-game artefacts:

‘1993: The lost arch (visible in his house in TR1 and TR2)

1995: The yeti: not so abominable! (visible in the intro of TR1)’

The webmaster states that his sources for the unofficial biography comes from a mix of the fansites 'The Tomb Raider Archive' and 'Lara's Scrapbook' as well as the official bio. We will come back to these later!

http://sebastien.herve.pagesperso-orange.fr/TB3_Lara.htm - Date unknown but the content of this website doesn’t include Tomb Raider 3, so it is estimated to date about 1998/early-mid 1999 (the author could have been playing TR3 in late 1998 and not updating the website). Now this French web site has the following:

‘Lara's biography is still mysterious. As certain facts are certain and official (such as her date of birth), others remain uncertain: blurring and contradiction on the part of Eidos-Core, inventions of journalists or fans, etc. The following lines are based on the information contained in the TR1 game booklet, supplemented by others from sites

Lara, born February 14, 1967, is the daughter of Lord Henshingly Croft and Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft. She grew up in an aristocratic environment and frequented the best British institutions for her education. At the age of 21, when her studies were over, her future seemed to be all set in a rich and affluent environment. But on a trip, her plane crashes into the Himalayan mountains ... She can no longer stand the cramped, stubborn world of British society. She then traverses the ruins of the disappeared civilizations, while her parents disinherit her for the benefit of Lord Brighton, their Yorkshire, who at least has kept her English good sense!’

This website also has her birthday down as:

‘Birth: 14 February 1967 in Timmonshire, Surrey, England

A further point that I would like to add at this point is that Timmonshire does not exist as a location anywhere in the UK, so that is made up.

• http://web.archive.org/web/19991013082920fw_/http://temple.ctimes.net:80/lara_bio.html - AKA, Lara’s Temple. This English speaking website also has a biography on Lara that dates as early (or possibly earlier) as 1999. This has the following bio:

‘Lara was born in England on the February 14th, 1967, the daughter of much respected transport tycoon Lord Henshingly Croft, Lara was set to lead her life as a high society figure. From the age of 11, Lara was educated at the Sor Bon in Paris, where she discovered rock climbing, before returning to England to finish her schooling. In her final year, at the age of 17, Lara took a ski trip that would change her life forever. The class of 18, led by teacher Miss Millet, traveled to Tibet for what was a week of great skiing... A week later, Lara stumbled into the small village of Tokakeriby, near Biratnagar, Nepal, almost dead. She was nurtured back to health by Doctor Laing, an American missionary doctor who was working in the village at the time...

Lara just managed to live off the profits of her books, until being contacted by one of the Croft family lawyers in 1993. She was informed of a secret treasure hidden by one of her long lost relatives. After an extensive search, the treasure was found, setting up Lara for the rest of her life. Along with the treasure, Lara also received a large plot of land in the British Virgin Islands, on the island of St. Bridgett, as well as the title of the Duchess of Saint Bridgett. Lara is currently living alone in her Mansion in Surrey. She is also occasionally seen at her summer home on the island of St. Bridgett, in the British Virgin Islands.’

As nice and as detailed as this is, I can guarantee that not many people would have heard of this. And as we have also proven here, the ‘Duchess of Saint Bridgett’ title is false and was fan made, therefore, fans have taken others’ work and copied and shared without including the original source, and the circle goes on.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20000531022527fw_/http://members.xoom.com:80/joestomb/lara.htm - Another English website. Again, Lara is a Duchess and was born in 1967.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20010815161316/http://www.tomb2000.com:80/lara/index.shtml - Tomb 2000. Possibly a well known website from back in the day. The link that we have given is dated to 2001. It contains all the bits that we have come accustomed to but also includes a second and contradicting bio at the top – the exact same on listed on Lara’s Temple’s website. Who copied who?

• http://tombraider.blogg.org/ - A French website that still has active pages at this current time. This biography has a source that this was taken from Captain-Alban and includes that location of Timmonshire.

• http://lamafia.pagesperso-orange.fr/laracroft/lara_croft.html - Another French website. It inaccurately has Lara’s find of the Dagger of Xian as 1998, which is the same as seen on Lara’s Temple, as well as the Yorkshire terrior and Angeline Lodge-Croft. The creator of this website does list sources however from Captain-Alban, Diego’s Tomb Raider website and the official Eidos/ Lara website. By doing some cross-referencing, the latter two websites do not include anything about the dog or Lara’s mother. So the information definitely came from Captain-Alban. If you want to see the other links for yourself, here they are:

• http://web.archive.org/web/20010628015231/http://tombfiles.com:80/biographie.htm - Diego’s Tomb Raider Site bio and

• http://web.archive.org/web/19990128173033/http://www.eidos.co.uk:80/lara/larapast.htm - Eidos’s ‘Lara’s Past’ bio.

• Lara Croft Les Carnets Secrets – A French book, dating to 1999. Now I don’t know how much input Core Design had in this book but I do know that it is written from Lara’s point of view and she goes through the alphabet, talking about points relating to her. Here are the mentions of Angeline - [here] and [here]. Notice that it is now spelt with an E. This is not the only misspelt word, [here] is another example and perhaps some wrong information [here] as Lara was never declared an archaeologist. But [here] are the sources for the book.

We won’t list any more of these websites that include Angeline or similar info but we think that you are starting to get the idea of what we are getting at. Fan sites copied information from each other (and sometimes not even sourcing where they got it from) and the two main sites in this list are Captain-Alban (Fr) and Lara’s Temple (Eng), both were/ are big time websites in Tomb Raider’s history. We hope that we have shown you a list of websites with varying levels of fame, not just the big name fansites. We also think that it might also be crucial to add that the sites that do mention ‘Angeline Lodge-Croft’ most commonly have Lara’s year of birth as 1967. It’s an odd linking but it suggests that when sites were using this information, there wasn’t that much clarification in Lara’s biography at the time.

Places That Don't Show a Mother's Name

To show the other side of this story, we will now list websites and other sources with the standard biography that was given by Core Design or Eidos. Although this list does not contain the mother’s name or any similar info, it shows the vast coverage that their biography had and the many chances that they had to add in the mother's name etc.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990128173033/http://www.eidos.co.uk:80/lara/larapast.htm - The official Eidos Website. This is the official biography on the Eidos UK website. It has a page specifically for Lara's past. The part that talks about Lara's parents only note Lord Henshingly Croft.

http://trinity.whsites.net/tomb/lara.html - This website was in touch with Vicky Arnold, Core’s script writer for Tomb Raider 1-3. There is no mention of Lara’s mother but look at the footnotes, Vicky has also mentioned that Lara was possibly not the type to go to university etc. Quite interesting. While it may not be completely official, it does contradict some of the biographies that we have listed above.

http://web.archive.org/web/19991128173344/http://psx.ign.com/news/11266.html - IGN were given a more updated biography back in 1999 to line up with the release of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. This is extensively updated but there is a mention of her mother but no name is given. But it is important to note that this is just a filler of biography to explain how Lara is travelling with Werner Von Croy at the beginning of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation.

Lara’s Book [here] [here] [here]This book dates to 1998.

The Face Magazine [here] This article dates to June 1997 and specifically says that ‘her mother is unnamed and unpictured’. Either the writers did not talk to Core or Eidos, which would then have been wrong of them to then use Lara’s image, or Lara’s mother name did not exist (yet?)

Tomb Raider: The Official Files [here] and [here]– dated to 2001 and was written by Susie Hamilton. She does not mention anything about Lara’s mother’s name or any similar detail in the original quote. Surely she would have added it here if it was official. But note that Lara’s mother from the IGN article 4 points above was not included here either.

TR Style Guide [here] and [here] This document had to have been worked on by Core Design members but once again there is no Angeline or Engeline etc. There’s no doubt about this, it would have been mentioned here if they wanted to.

AOD Companion [here] and [here] No mention

Tomb Raider The Book Strategy Guide [here] and [here] - no mention but it also says here that Lara accompanied Von Croy to Columbia and that the Earl of Farringdon was on the plane crash with Lara

Lara Croft: The Art of Virtual Seduction (Eng) [here]

Tomb Raider 2 Companion Book [here] and [here]. This book dates to early 1998 but it mentions that the bio included here is from the TR2 style guide, created by Core Design. Now just because Angeline is not mentioned, doesn't mean that we can rule it out completely. Perhaps this name was a thought for Core Design and that was how it remained.

Now To Look Further Back In History

So far, we have gone back as far as mid-late 1998 to 1999. It's all very much 50/50 right now. Let's see if we can go back further.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990508013020/http://www.captain-alban.com:80/larabio.html - Captain-Alban again but this time, it is dated to 1999 on the Wayback Machine but it could be earlier, well it certainly is earlier than the link posted way above. The interesting point we would like to make here is that the author has colour coded certain texts where the information has come from. (Remember earlier when we said that we would come back to another point, well this is it!) The bit that we would like to point out is that Angeline Lodge-Croft is highlighted in Red, and using what Captain-Alban had said, this means that it came from the fan site ‘Lara’s Scrapbook’, which was run by a Richard. J Pugh. Now we have found Richard’s work prior to finding this link but this helps to back up where Captain-Alban had gotten their info. Ready for the kicker?

Richard J.Pugh is the author of the fanfiction that created the Duchess of Saint Bridgett title. If many people believed that this title was gospel, then what else could they also take from his biography/ story. He has also created a lot of other bits and bobs that many fan sites have also copied w/o quoting source, so perhaps they believed that his biography was official.

Okay, so you may want to argue that Richard had gotten his information from ‘official’ sources, and that is true on some part. Thankfully, he lists where he had gotten some of his info from. This can be found at the bottom of the page:

‘That's my version of this fictional character's biography. Much of this information is from Core/Eidos, Robert Wheeler (at his Tomb Raider Archive), and The Croft Times, but a lot of I made up (claiming creative license). It doesn't totally mesh with "official" sources about Lara, but I'm trying.’

Let’s look at them:

http://web.archive.org/web/19990219190639/http://trarchive.ctimes.net:80/laracroft.html - TR Archive bio 01. It has no mention of an Angeline Lodge-Croft or a Yorkshire terrior, however the date of birth is 1967.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970805111753/http://homepages.enterprise.net:80/mfluderx/lara.html - TR Archives bio 02. Still no mention of mother but this is the earliest bio that we have found, dating to 1997! This is everything that was released by Core up to 1997, except for the date of the discovery of the Lost Ark of the Covenant, which came from Robert Wheeler’s fan fiction.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001109153000/http://www.cubeit.com:80/ctimes/lara.htm - The Croft Times Bio. Scroll down for this one. There is no mention of Lara’s mother etc. And at least they corrected the date of discovery of the Dagger of Xian.

This leads us on to believe that the bits that are different to these links and the official bio must be of his own creation! – except for Lara’s favourite cities, which actually appears in the 1997 book ‘Lara’s Book’ by Douglas Coupland. Anyway, let us link for you Richard’s website and story.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990203150207/http://patriot.net:80/~rjpugh/lara/index.html - Aka, Lara’s Scrapbook. Richard spent a lot of time invested in fan fiction and so Lara’s Scrapbook offers help in writing fan fiction and tried to add a list of characters from every fanfiction.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001011085509/http://trarchive.ctimes.net:80/saint.html - Richard's story 'The Duchess of Saint Bridgett'.

http://web.archive.org/web/19981205142036/http://patriot.net:80/~rjpugh/lara/lara.html - Richard’s biography of Lara. Notice that it does contain a whole lot of ‘new’ info, like a middle name for Lara and the name of Lara’s parents ‘Lord James Henshingly and Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft (deceased)’ and ‘Over the following eight years she acquired an intimate knowledge of ancient civilizations across the globe, all the while continuing her education at Oxford, a brief fellowship at the Sor Bon,’ and that ‘she currently maintains a residence in Timmonshire (a district within Surrey), and a summer home on the island of St. Bridget in the British Virgin Islands.’ These points come from his first fan fiction.

Finally, we would like to point out there is one link on Richard’s site (which can no longer be accessed sadly) that would have likely helped us in solving the matter of the name ‘Angeline Lodge-Croft’. It is his article on the characters that Lara knows (http://web.archive.org/web/19981205173334/http://patriot.net:80/~rjpugh/lara/characters.html) – here he used symbols to show if the characters he had listed were created by Core Design or if they had come from fan fictions. You may also note that we have not provided much history on the Yorkshire dog, and sadly we cannot find anything on it.

What we now believe is a major deciding factor is that his website dates to 1998 – it says it at the bottom of each page; this date is before and during the time that many other sites are adding bios to their own websites as you have seen in the first list of websites. Could this have been the originating site that others had copied it from? As we know, it certainly is the website that Captain-Alban had used.

To Conclude

We haven't actually found DEFINITIVE proof that says that it is unofficial, but we haven't found anything that says that it is. Our belief is that the name of Lara's mother 'Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft' is not official; it was created by a fan but has since been mistaken as official. Richard created his fan fiction and a large biography for Lara. Fans then read this biography and copied it, possibly even taking it as official. Over time, fans came and went and new fans picked up on this bio. Captain-Alban has copied it from Richard (and he has mentioned that himself) and whilst the older English speaking fan sites died off, Captain Alban’s French website still goes on. French fans come here (naturally) and see this biography and then take it for their fan sites. This would explain a modern lack of English fan sites containing this info whilst modern French/ Spanish fan sites still contain it.

It would also make sense for Alexandre Serel to get his information from websites of his native language and what better than one of the biggest French fan sites (although we cannot guarantee that he got it from Captain-Alban, he does list this website as a source in the back of the book. You can see them [here] and [here]. This website alone predates Gamekult and TombraiderSource, the only other French websites that he has listed as sources, and perhaps they took their info from Captain-Alban also). Our best piece of evidence is where Captain-Alban colour coded his biography and the text in question came from Richard J. Pugh's website. Richard's sources for his biography did not contain anything about a Lady Angeline Lodge-Croft and therefore is Richard's creation. He even went to the effort of creating Lara as the co-founder of the Angeline Croft foundation (you can see that in his bio). And as we have already mentioned, if some fans believed in Lara's title of a countess, what else could they have picked up. The original usage of this was lost in time with no-one to correct it. Also, since it is not seen on the official Eidos or Tomb Raider webesites, nor in any official books, we think that it would be safe to say that it wasn't a fact created by Core Design or Eidos Interactive as it wasn't given out by them.

One Different Point About Lara's Birth Year

One more discrepancy that we would like to iron out is the year of birth that is sometime given as 1967. This has come about from the information provided in the TR1 manual, as seen [here]. By doing some simple math, you can get that from the date of the game’s release minus the age of Lara that is provided, you get 1967. 1996 – (age of 21 + following the next 8 yrs) 29 = 1967. Now it is tough to argue against this fact, despite Core and Eidos later adding that Lara was born in 1968. Say that the plane crash happened after Feb 14 (which we know that Lara was 21 at that time), then add on the 8 years but believe that it wasn’t a complete 8 years (as in Lara hadn’t yet had a birthday in the 8th year, suggesting to us that TR1 is set in Jan/before Feb 14th). Therefore, Lara wouldn’t yet be 29 as the manual suggests but still 28, which when taken from 1996, would equal 1968. Still, amongst this confusion, by 1997/1998 fansites had been updating the year as 1968. Susie Hamilton later confirms that Lara’s official birth year is 1968 as seen in this article [here], originally on The Croft Times and dated 17th April 1999. Fansites which have continued to date it to 1967 just never corrected it.

At the end of the day, you can believe what you want about Lara and who is she and her biography because everyone takes a different part of Lara with them and everyone sees her differently. When we think about what Lara, we create our own stories of her life. But we do hope that this can add some clarification and bring sources together as it is nice to have a definite history.

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