Henry Noel Bentinck

A non-conformist intellectual, deeply concerned about humanity's responsibility to its environment.

Henry Bentinck, Earl of Portland, who has died at the age of 77, was a man far ahead of his time in understanding how fast we were losing our inheritance of the natural world. He knew as an environmentalist how and why Rachel Carson's sad prophecy of a silent spring could soon be with us. He came from an aristocratic family that had lost its wealth and land in an earlier period. He knew personally all about the loss of inheritance.

He was not one to merely voice his concerns in private. His thriller Isoworg (International Society for World Government) espoused his ideas and he once hired Trafalgar Square for an afternoon to make his voice heard. His other publications include a children's adventure, The Avenue of Flutes; a popular science question-and-answer book, Anyone Can Understand the Atom; and a television play, Countdown at Woomera. The last six years of his life have been spent working on his fourth and most important book, 'Life is a Sum Humanity is Doing Wrong'.This is a philosophical assessment of the position humanity finds itself in today and what the future holds. In later years young people in particular were delighted to find support for their unconventional ways and ideas from this unlikely figure.

 Henry Bentinck was born in 1919, a Count of the Holy Roman Empire with a Royal Licence of 1886 to use the title in England. His father died when he was 12 and his mother seven years later. His mother was Lady Norah Noel, eldest daughter of the Earl of Gainsborough, and for the first six years of his life, Henry grew up to love the woods and streams of the Gainsborough seat at Exton where they lived in a cottage in the park.

 Bentinck always had an independent spirit. After education at Harrow, he was sent to Sandhurst. He left after only a term amidst press headlines - "Count missing from Sandhurst" - went to America where he worked as a cowboy in California for a year. He returned to England in 1939, and in 1940 married Pauline Mellowes. With the outbreak of war, Henry had promptly registered as a Conscientious Objector, expounding the idea of the unity of mankind's spiritual existence and the unique consciousness of humanity, a quite extraordinary idea from a twenty-year-old of that period. However, his innate sense of patriotism and the death of a close friend soon made him realise that he could not sustain his views. He joined the family regiment, the Coldstream Guards, as a private soldier. He was soon commissioned as a Lieutenant and served with distinction in Italy at Camino, was wounded twice and the second time taken prisoner shortly before the crossing of the river Po. The news of his capture made a front page story in the Daily Telegraph under the headline "Count Missing Again". On reading the story, a relation thought he had deserted from the front line and left the Bentinck money intended for Henry to a number of other people. He remained a prisoner of war until 1945. On his release, he rejoined the regiment as part of the garrison in Trieste.

After the war, he joined the BBC as a talks producer. This job brought him in touch with the work of people such as Professor N.S. Shaler, who had forecast ecological catastrophe as early as the 1900s. Ideas like these reinforced his view that the abuse of the environment would be fatal to our civilisation. It led him to accept an offer of employment as a "jackaroo" on a sheep station in Tasmania. He emigrated there with his family in 1952. Events there gave them no option but to return to England in 1955 where he rejoined the BBC.

Here, he joined Bob Craddock, the first producer of "Today", with Jack de Manio as presenter. He also produced the series "The Younger Generation" and worked for further education which helped him in the selective pursuit of his principal interests and also enabled him to write his first book, Anyone Can Understand the Atom.

In 1959 he left the BBC to join J Walter Thompson as an advertising producer. There he gained a reputation for innovation and daring, producing over 600 commercials. Who of us will forget the stunning images of the Nimble balloon or the Kipling cake campaign. The advertising industry still remembers "The Count" in raccoon skin coat, black eye patch and convertible VW Beetle.

In 1967, his wife Pauline died. His increasing interest and expertise in the dangers facing the environment made him decide to leave the advertising world. Together with his new wife, Jenny Hopkins whom he married in 1974, he moved to Devon where initially with the help of his son and daughter-in-law, then single-handedly, they set up and ran a self-sufficient 10 acre organic smallholding and guesthouse which they managed with great success for the next six years.

Now in his sixties, the workload proved too much, and in 1982, Henry moved with Jenny to a beautiful thatched farmhouse in North Devon. There, he devoted himself to his writing. He struck up a close friendship with the writer James Lovelock, whose respect and encouragement enabled Henry to finish Life is a Sum...

In 1990, the dukedom of Portland died out and Henry succeeded to the earldom of Portland. He had always wanted to use the political platform of the House of Lords to further the environmental causes he had espoused for most of his life and his maiden speech took up the theme. He called on his fellow peers to take a lead in the environmental debate - "to keep their 'green' hat on always" - and not merely talk about sustainability, but work to create an economy that the environment could sustain. He urged them to help people face up to the fact that civilisation no longer serves our best interests but threatens them. Failing health prevented him from having the impact that he had hoped, but his legacy will not be forgotten.

He married first in 1940, Pauline Mellowes, who died in 1967; they had one son and two daughters, Sorrel and Anna. He married secondly, in 1974, Jenny Hopkins. Heir, Timothy Bentinck, Viscount Woodstock.
 

Tom Read