Howard McKern Howard McKern Howard Hamlet Gordon McKern (23 March 1917 - 8 June 2009) was an Australian analytical and organic chemist, museum administrator who was Deputy Director of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and President of the Royal Society of New South Wales. McKern was the son of James Gordon McKern (1888–1975) a mining engineer, geologist and petrologist who became a technical executive with the petroleum company Mobil and Edith Mary Hamlet (1890–1967), daughter of William Mogford Hamlet. McKern was born in Mosman, New South Wales and educated at Newington College (1931–1935). In the Leaving Certificate Examination he was
Leo McKern McKern appeared in a series of advertisements for Lloyds Bank, widely shown on British television, in which he portrayed a character reminiscent of Rumpole. McKern wrote one radio play, which became the film "Chain of Events" (1958). He also provided the voice of Captain Haddock in the 1992 and 1993 BBC Radio adaptation of "Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin". Suffering in his final years from ill health McKern moved into a nursing home near Bath in Somerset in 2002, where he died a few weeks later at the age of 82. His body was cremated at Haycombe Cemetery in Bath.