John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley

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John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley (May 12, 1924 – May 26, 2002) was the oft-married Earl of Kimberley from 1941 to 2002. He inherited the title when his father, John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberley, was killed in an air raid. He was a member of the House of Lords as well as being a leading bobsled racer.

He was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge and served in the Grenadier Guards. He reportedly had a strong dislike of his kinsman, P.G. Wodehouse (they were third cousins thrice removed). He had the reputation of being Britain's most married Peer, having married Diana Legh (a daughter of Sir Piers Legh) in 1945 as the first of six wives. They divorced in 1948, and he married Australian Carmel Dunnett in 1949. They had a son, John Armine Wodehouse, 5th Earl of Kimberley, but divorced in 1952. He tried again in 1953 with Cynthia Abdy Westendarp, but they too were divorced in 1961. Then he married model Margaret Simons in 1961 but they were also divorced in 1965. Wodehouse then wed Gillian Ireland-Smith in 1970, but they split up so he could marry Janey Consett, a masseuse he'd met in Jamaica, in 1982. This marriage lasted for the remainder of his life and gave him much happiness.

For some years he was an active member of the Conservative Monday Club and, briefly, chairman of the Club's Foreign Affairs Commiittee. Under his chairmanship it published a Club Policy Paper in August 1983, The Future of Hong Kong by David Sparrow.

He wrote a memoir entitled the Whim of the Wheel, after he had suffered a stroke, in 1998. He also contributed to the debate in the House of Lords on UFOs.

"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 KIMBERLY House of Lords Debate on Unidentified Flying Objects

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Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
John Wodehouse		 Earl of Kimberley
1941–2002		 Succeeded by
John Armine Wodehouse