John Armine Wodehouse, 5th Earl of Kimberley

FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

(born 15 January 1951), is a British chemist and peer.

Early life

The eldest of four sons of

John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley 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 and Cresta member. Background and education Wodehouse was the son of John Wo ...

, but his only child with his first wife, Carmel Maguire, daughter of Mickey Maguire,

welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify the ...

champion of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, he was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

and the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

, where he graduated BSc and MSc. Kimberley's middle name, Armine, recalls his ancestor

Sir Armine Wodehouse, 5th Baronet Sir Armine Wodehouse, 5th Baronet (c. 1714 – 21 May 1777), was a British Tory Member of Parliament. Wodehouse was the son of Sir John Wodehouse, 4th Baronet, and Mary Fermor. His unusual first name reflects his connection with the Armine Baro ...

, from whom the writer

P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeve ...

was also descended.The Earl of Kimberley
(obituary) in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' dated 29 May 2002, accessed 23 February 2018

Career

Kimberley is a chemist and worked for

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the ten ...

from 1974 until he retired in 2012. He is also a computer systems programmer, a Fellow of the

British Interplanetary Society The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration. Str ...

, a member of the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

, and a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

. He succeeded his father to the peerages in 2002. In 2008, he was licensed as a

lay reader In Anglicanism, a licensed lay minister (LLM) or lay reader (in some jurisdictions simply reader) is a person authorised by a bishop to lead certain services of worship (or parts of the service), to preach and to carry out pastoral and teaching ...

in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Personal life

In 1973, Kimberley married the Hon. Carol Palmer, daughter of

Raymond Palmer, 3rd Baron Palmer Raymond Cecil Palmer, 3rd Baron Palmer OBE (24 June 1916 – 26 June 1990) was a British peer and business man, a member of the House of Lords from 1950 until his death. Early life The son of Ernest Cecil Nottage Palmer, 2nd Baron Palmer and his ...

. They have two children: Lady Katherine Frances Wodehouse and David Simon John Wodehouse, Lord Wodehouse (born 1978),

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

to the peerages.Mosley, Charles, editor, '' Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage'', 107th edition (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 2, page 2163. Lady Kimberley is a priest in the Church of England. She was made a canon at St Alban's Abbey in 2010 and is the first and only "Revd Canon Countess" in British history.

References

1951 births Living people People educated at Eton College Alumni of the University of East Anglia 15 John Wodehouse, 5th Earl of Kimberley Anglican lay readers {{UK-earl-stub