Jack, Lord Wodehouse

Although he was 36 years old, Jack Wodehouse was the youngest member of the British team that won the gold medals in the 1920 polo tournament, held at Ostend, After leaving Eton, Lord Wodehouse, who inherited the title as the 3rd Earl of Kimberley, went up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge and, after being on the losing side in the polo match against Oxford in 1903, then captained the winning Cambridge team for the next two years.

Wodehouse was a Liberal Member of Parliament for mid-Norfolk from 1906-10 and it was during his period in the House that he won an Olympic silver medal with the Hurlingham team at the 1908 Olympics. He also played in Westchester Cup matches in 1909 and 1921 and was a member of the old Cantab’s team that won the Champion Cup in 1908, 1910, 1912, 1914, and 1920-21, and he added another title in 1926 with Harlequins. A 10-goal handicap, Wodehouse was President of the Polo Pony Society in 1925. His many victories included the Ranelagh Open Cup, Roehampton Open Cup, All-Ireland Open, and the Coronation, Whitney, Social Clubs, County Polo Association Open, Rugby Open Cups; and the Monty Waterbury Cup, the Moreton Morrell Tournament and the Côte d’Azur Cups.

In World War I, Lord Wodehouse served with the 16th Lancers, winning the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre, and the Italian War Cross. After the war, he was assistant private secretary to the Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, and was awarded the CBE in 1925. He succeeded his father to the Earldom in 1932 and in 1941, while paying one of his rare visits to London from his Norfolk estates, he was killed in an air raid during the London blitzkrieg.