John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberley CBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 MC

Military Cross

The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....

 (11 November 1883–16 April 1941) was a British peer, known from 1902 to 1932 as Lord Wodehouse.

Biography

Wodehouse, the eldest son of the 2nd Earl of Kimberley

John Wodehouse, 2nd Earl of Kimberley

John Wodehouse, 2nd Earl of Kimberley , known as Lord Wodehouse from 1866 to 1902, was a British peer and landowner, who was the first member of the Labour Party in the House of Lords....

, was MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Mid Norfolk from 1906–1910.

He was a captain

Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)

Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...

 in the 16th Lancers during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, where he was wounded and twice mentioned in despatches. On 5 May 1922, he married the twice-divorced Frances Margaret Montagu , a daughter of Lt.-Col. Leonard Irby. He succeeded to his father's titles in 1932. In 1941, he was a killed in The Blitz

The Blitz

The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...

 and was succeeded by his only child, John

John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley

John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley 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 holds the unique distinction of being the only person to win a Gold Medal at the Olympics in 1920 and a Silver Medal in 1908.

It is also said (Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable) that P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

 based the character of Bertie Wooster

Bertie Wooster

Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of British author P. G. Wodehouse. An English gentleman, one of the "idle rich" and a member of the Drones Club, he appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose genius manages to extricate Bertie or one of...

on him.