John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Right Honourable

The Earl of Kimberley

Born 12 May 1924

Died 26 May 2002 (aged 78)

Education Eton College

Magdalene College, Cambridge

Occupation(s) Peer, bobsledder

Diana Legh
Spouses

(m. 1945; div. 1948)
Carmel Dunnett

(m. 1949; div. 1952)
Cynthia Westendarp

(m. 1953; div. 1961)
Margaret Simons

(m. 1961; div. 1965)
Gillian Ireland-Smith

(m. 1970; div. 1982)
Jane Consett
 (m. 1982)

Children John Wodehouse, 5th Earl of Kimberley

Hon. Edward Wodehouse

Hon. Henry Wodehouse

Hon. Charles Wodehouse

Parent(s) John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberley

Margaret Irby

Military career

Allegiance  United Kingdom

Service/branch British Army

Years of service 1942–1945

Rank Lieutenant

Unit Guards Armoured Division

Conflict World War II

John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley (12 May 1924 – 26 May 2002), styled Lord
Wodehouse between 1932 and 1941, was an active British peer, and also
a bobsled racer[1] and Cresta member.[2]

Background and education[edit]

Wodehouse was the son of John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberley and Frances
Margaret Irby, and succeeded to the earldom in 1941 when his father was killed in an
air raid. He was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge, and served with
the Grenadier Guards in the Guards Armoured Division in 1943–45.[3]
Wodehouse was the godson of the writer P. G. Wodehouse, a distant cousin (third
cousins thrice removed), both being descended from Sir Armine Wodehouse, 5th
Baronet.[4]

Personal life[edit]
Lord Kimberley had the reputation of being Britain's most married peer, having married
six times. His first marriage was on 27 October 1945 to Diana Evelyn Legh, daughter
of Sir Piers Legh; they divorced in 1949. His next marriage was to Australian Carmel
June Dunnett (née Maguire) on 9 February 1949. They had a son before divorcing in
1952:

 John Wodehouse, 5th Earl of Kimberley

Lord Kimberley's marriage was to Cynthia Westendarp (née Abdy Collins) on 15
September 1953, but they were divorced in 1961. Together they had two sons:

 Hon. Edward Abdy Wodehouse (born 29 May 1954)

 Hon. Henry Wyndham Wodehouse (born 26 April 1956); served in
the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police
His next marriage was to model Margaret Simons on 7 July 1961, but they were also
divorced, in 1965. Wodehouse then wed Gillian Ireland-Smith on 8 August 1970. They
divorced in 1982, so that he could marry Sarah Jane Hope Consett, daughter of
Lieutenant-Colonel A. P. Consett, DSO, MC, Grenadier Guards, on 20 August 1982.
[5]
 This marriage lasted for the remainder of his life and gave him much happiness.

Politics[edit]
Lord Kimberley was the Vice-President of the World Council on Alcoholism, an
Associate of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and sometime Liberal Spokesman on
Aerospace, Defence and Voluntary Community Services in the House of Lords.
However, in 1979 he joined the Conservative Party. He was a long-standing member of
the House of Lords All-Party Defence Group (Hon.Secretary from 1978) and became
U.K. delegate to the North Atlantic Assembly from 1981. From that year he was a
member of the Air League Council. He was a member of the Association of
Conservative Peers, of the British Maritime League Council, the Royal United Services
Institute, the Institute for Strategic Studies and the British Atlantic Committee.[6]
For some years he was an active member of the Conservative Monday Club, joining in
1982 and was the next year appointed chairman of the Club's Foreign Affairs
Committee[7] as well as joining their Executive Council.[8] Under his committee
chairmanship a Club Policy Paper was published in August that year on The Future
of Hong Kong by barrister David Sparrow. In his capacity as Chairman of the Club's
Foreign Affairs Committee he also addressed the NATO Plenary Session in June that
year supporting the deployment of Cruise missiles, and on 8 October 1983 addressed
the Club's South-western Region day-conference at Taunton on the subject of "Defence
and C.N.D."[9]
He wrote a memoir entitled The Whim of the Wheel, after he suffered a stroke in 1998.
He also contributed to the debate in the House of Lords on Unidentified Flying Objects:
"UFOs defy worldly logic... The human mind cannot begin to comprehend UFO
characteristics: their propulsion, their sudden appearance, their disappearance, their
great speeds, their silence, their manoeuvre, their apparent anti-gravity, their changing
shapes." EARL OF KIMBERLEY House of Lords.

References[edit]
1. ^ The Earl of Kimberley, The Whim of the Wheel. The Memoirs of the Earl of Kimberley,
Cardiff 2001, pp. 51-68.
2. ^ St. Moritz Tobogganing Club, Annual Report, No. 45 of the Cresta Run for 1964-1965, p.
187.
 3. ^ Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1991, 172nd edition, Hurst Green, Sussex,p.172.
4. ^ The Earl of Kimberley (obituary) in The Daily Telegraph dated 29 May 2002, accessed 23
February 2018
5. ^ Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1991, 172nd edition, Hurst Green, Sussex,p.172.
6. ^ Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1991, 172nd edition, Hurst Green, Sussex,p.172.
7. ^ Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1991, 172nd edition, Hurst Green, Sussex,p.172.
8. ^ Monday News, October 1983, p.3.
9. ^ Monday News, October 1983, pps: 1 - 4.

 The Times (obituary).