- Henry Bentinck, 11th Earl of Portland
Henry Noel Bentinck, 11th Earl of Portland (
2 October 1919 -30 January 1997 ), was a non-conformist intellectual, concerned about the environment.Henry Bentinck was born in 1919. He was Count/Graf Bentinck und Waldeck Limpurg of the
Holy Roman Empire with a Royal Licence of 1886 to use the title in England. His fatherRobert Charles Graf Captain Bentinck (1875-1932) died when he was only 12. His motherLady Norah Ida Emily Noel , eldest daughter of the Charles William Francis Noel, 3rd Earl of Gainsborough, died when he was 19.He was educated at Harrow and
Sandhurst Military College , but left after only a term amidst press headlines - "Count missing from Sandhurst". He worked as a cowboy in California for a year, returning to England in 1939 and marrying Pauline Ursula Mellowes in 1940. He registered as aconscientious objector , but after the death of a close friend he joined the family regiment, theColdstream Guards , as a private soldier. He was sooncommissioned as an officer and served with distinction in Italy atCamino . He was wounded twice, and a prisoner of war until 1945, when he rejoined the regiment inTrieste .After the war he was a producer at the
BBC , where he met ProfessorNathaniel Shaler , who had forecast ecological catastrophe as early as the 1900s. This led to emigration from 1952 to 1955, and working as a "jackaroo " on a sheep station inTasmania .He rejoined the BBC, as producer of the"
Today programme " presented byJack de Manio and other series. At this time he wrote his first book "Anyone Can Understand the Atom". In 1959 he joined J Walter Thompson as an advertising producer, working on over 600 commercials.He moved to
Devon in 1974 with his second wife Jenny Hopkins to run a self-sufficient organicsmallholding and guest-house for six years. Later he struck up a close friendship withJames Lovelock the creator of theGaia hypothesis , and published "Life is a Sum".In 1990, the dukedom of Portland died out and Henry succeeded to the earldom of Portland, using his maiden speech in the
House of Lords to address environmental issues.Family
He was married to Pauline Mellowes from 1940 until her death in 1967; they had one son, Timothy Bentinck, Viscount Woodstock, and two daughters, Sorrel and Anna. He married Jenny Hopkins in 1974.
References
* [http://www.bentinck.net/pa/index.htm Tim Bentick's Memorial site]
* [http://www.thepeerage.com/ ThePeerage.com]
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