Lord Lymington

Gerard Vernon Wallop, 9th Earl of Portsmouth (16 May 1898 – 28 September 1984), styled Viscount Lymington from 1925 until 1943, was a British landowner, writer on agricultural topics, and politician involved in right-wing groups.

Wallop was an early advocate of organic farming in Britain. He has been described as a “central figure in the organic movement’s coalescence during the 1930s and ’40s.”

He founded the Kinship in Husbandry with Rolf Gardiner, a precursor of the Soil Association. It recruited Edmund Blunden, Arthur Bryant, H. J. Massingham, Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne, Adrian Bell, and Philip Mairet.

Phillip Conford has written about him. “While rejecting the view that commitment to organic husbandry necessarily implies far-Right politics, the article argues that Wallop’s espousal of both causes casts serious doubt on the claim that the early organic movement was a-political.”