Henry Kitchener Obituary

The Third Earl Henry Kitchener of Khartoum TD DL
24th February 1919 – 16th December 2011

Earl Kitchener with Dr Joe Hibbeln, NIH, USA

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Henry Kitchener, 3rd and last Earl of Kitchener. Whilst his great-uncle was a man of war, Henry was a man of peace.

I first met Henry in the 1980s when we had meetings of the McCarrison Society Committee at the Institute of Zoology in Regent\’s Park. I was struck by his straightforward approach to nutrition and health which was so very \\”McCarrison\\”. After he left the committee he was a champion of good nutrition principles in the Upper House and moreover, would challenge the Department of Health about its simplistic approach to nutrition. I used to enjoy his probing emails right to the very end. He was an advocate of minerals and trace elements, including Boron, in the recommendations for dietary intakes. The DoH did not want to include Boron considering there was too little evidence.

Henry was aware of early work showing the essentiality of boron for growing vegetables (e.g. \\”Evidence on the indispensable nature of zinc and boron for higher green plants\\”. Sommer AL, Lipman CB. Plant Physiol. 1926 Jul;1(3):231-49) and \\”soils lacking boron adequate for good crop growth have been reported in over half of the forty-eight states\\” (Some effects of boron and manganese on the quality of beets and tomatoes. Gum OB, Brown HD, Burrell RC. Plant Physiol. 1945 Apr;20(2):267-75.)

There are 11,876 citations regarding Boron in Pub Med. the most recent of which is Skeletal effects of nutrients and nutraceuticals, beyond calcium and vitamin D. Nieves JW. Osteoporos Int. 2012 Nov 14. [Epub ahead of print].

These authors argue – also in a very McCarrison way – about the need for a wide range of elements not generally considered as essential but consistently present in a diet of the unsophisticated foods of nature. Now Henry has left us, this matter should be followed up. He was well aware that he was not just talking about Boron as there are many elements commonly in our foods about which little is known.

Major Henry Herbert Kitchener, 3rd Earl Kitchener DL TD (24 February 1919 – 16 December 2011), styled Viscount Broome from 1928 to 1937, was a British peer. He was the son of Captain Henry Franklin Chevallier Kitchener, Viscount Broome, only son of Henry Kitchener, 2nd Earl Kitchener. His great-uncle was the renowned military commander Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener.

He was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. He succeeded his grandfather in the earldom on 27 March 1937. In 1937, he was a Page of Honour to King George VI at his coronation. Lord Kitchener served in the Royal Corps of Signals, retiring with the rank of major, and was President of the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Fund from 1950 until his death. In 1972, he served as Deputy Lieutenant of Cheshire. Like his uncle before him, he was an English Freemason. In 2005, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Royal Confraternity of Sao Teotonio. He was a Vice President of The Western Front Association.

Lord Kitchener\’s interest in the application of evidence-based research was demonstrated by his role of President and a Trustee of the Institute for Food Brain and Behaviour (formerly Natural Justice) a UK charity conducting scientific research into the effects of nutrition on brain function and behaviour. Kitchener was associated with the charity for over 20 years serving under two chairmen, the late Bishop Hugh Montefiore and the current chairman, Mrs Frances Jackson. He took a keen, detailed, interest in IFBB\’s scientific work, interrogating scientists robustly at Board Meetings on the progress of their research and was a keen and perceptive reader of academic journal articles and papers.

Henry Kitchener was also a committed supporter of the organic movement and took up a role with the charity Garden Organic (formerly the Henry Doubleday Research Association – HDRA). Having joined the charity’s founder, Lawrence Hills’, band of enthusiasts in July 1958, as member number 171, Henry Kitchener became its president in 1973, a position he was to occupy for the next thirty-five years. In 2008, during Garden Organic’s 50th anniversary year, Earl Kitchener left the organisation as President and was replaced by Professor Tim Lang. However Earl Kitchener remained interested in the organic movement and regularly wrote and updated the organisation whenever a subject arose that he felt passionately about.

Lord Kitchener was unmarried, and, upon his death in 2011 the title Earl Kitchener became extinct.

His niece Lady Emma Joy Fellowes is a lady-in-waiting to Princess Michael of Kent and the wife of actor, novelist, film director, screenwriter and Conservative peer, Lord (Julian) Kitchener-Fellowes. On May 9, 2012, the Queen issued a Royal Warrant declaring that Lady Kitchener \\”shall henceforth have, hold and enjoy the same title, rank, place, pre-eminence and precedence as a daughter of an Earl,\\” granting her the right to succeed to the the title and dignity of Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and Broome.

The McCarrison Society was represented at the memorial service for Earl Kitchener at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey, Thursday 7th June 2012 by David Marsh. MAC.

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