Lord Northbourne

Lord Northbourne (1896-1982), born Walter Ernest Christopher James, was the 4th Baron Northbourne of Kent, England. He was an agriculturist, educator, translator, and writer on both agriculture and comparative religion. He was educated at Oxford and was for many years Provost of Wye College—the agricultural college of London University. Lord Northbourne was a keen agronomist, and wrote an influential book in 1940, Look to the Land.  In this book, Northbourne introduced the term “organic farming” to the world, as well as the concepts related to managing a farm as an “organic whole.” After reading the book, Marco Pallis contacted Lord Northbourne and later introduced him to Traditionalist/Perennialist writers and their ideas. In years to come, he would integrate their thinking into his own writings and life, and corresponded with many of the most prominent writers of this school, as well as with Thomas Merton.

Lord Northbourne later began to make his own contributions to the Traditionalist body of work, writing articles for the British journal Studies in Comparative Religion. Many of these essays were later included in his books Religion in the Modern World (1963) and Looking Back on Progress (1970). Lord Northbourne wrote on a wide range of topics, often pointing blunt charges at the failings of the modern world, and used vivid examples to substantiate his criticisms. His writings are noted for their clarity and logical progression, and so the books of Lord Northbourne are often cited as excellent introductions to the Traditionalist perspective.

Lord Northbourne was an energetic and expert translator, and he had the distinction of translating into English the important book The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times by René Guénon. He also translated the original English edition of Light on the Ancient Worlds by Frithjof Schuon and Sacred Art in East and West by Titus Burckhardt.

Lord Northbourne’s essential writings are collected in Of the Land and the Spirit. His essay “The Survival of Civilization” caps the anthology Every Branch in Me and his essay “Religion and Science,” is included in the book Science and the Myth of Progress .