Henry Noel Bentinck, 11th Earl of Portland, 7th Count Bentinck und Waldeck Limpurg was a non-conformist intellectual, concerned about the environment.
Background
Bentinck was born in 1919. His father Robert Charles Bentinck, 6th Count Bentinck (1875–1932) died when Bentinck was only twelve. He was a descendant of the Honourable William Bentinck, 1st Count Bentinck (1704–1774), younger son of William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, and half-brother of Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland.
His mother Lady Norah Ida Emily Noel, eldest daughter of Charles William Francis Noel, 3rd Earl of Gainsborough, died when he was 19.
Education
He was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst Military College, but left after only a term amidst press headlines - "Count missing from Sandhurst".
Career
He worked as a cowboy in California for a year, returning to England in 1939 and marrying Pauline Ursula Mellowes in 1940. He was soon commissioned as an officer and served with distinction in Italy at Camino. He was wounded twice, and a prisoner of war until 1945, when he rejoined the regiment in Trieste.
After the war he was a producer at the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he met Professor Nathaniel Shaler, who had forecast ecological catastrophe as early as the 1900s.
This led to emigration from 1952 to 1955, and working as a jackaroo on a sheep station in Tasmania. He rejoined the British Broadcasting Corporation, as producer of the Today programme presented by Jack de Manio and other series.
At this time he wrote his first book, Anyone Can Understand the Atom. In 1959 he joined J. Walter Thompson as an advertising producer, working on over 600 commercials.
He created and produced the Nimble bread balloon commercials, as well as the first campaign for Mr Kipling, himself coining the phrase, "Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes".