After a career in the British Army, he sold the family company in 1978 and emigrated to the Bahamas, where he became involved in marine conservation.
[1] Wounded in the retreat to Dunkirk, Sir Keith died on 31 August 1941; his eight-year-old son, Nicholas, inherited the title, the family company, and the family seat at Lowesby Hall near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.
Sir Nicholas was educated at Eton College and Sandhurst, and took a commission in the Royal Horse Guards in 1953.
The company was bought by Hollandsche Beton Groep (later HBG), a Dutch group, in 1978, and he emigrated shortly afterwards with his third wife, Miranda, moving to Lyford Cay, near Nassau, Bahamas, on New Providence there, although he kept a house in Chelsea.
The Nassau Guardian lauded him after his death as a "prominent local environmentalist... at the forefront of a number of important marine conservation initiatives and environmental causes".