Michael Rutland’s deep attachment to Bhutan goes back over 50 years to 1971 when he was first appointed science tutor to the 16 year old crown prince, now the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. At the time Michael was a school teacher in Oxford and had no idea where Bhutan was. On the map he saw that it had ‘unmapped’ written across much of it, feeling intrigued, he accepted the job, not anticipating how deeply he would fall in love with the country.
He was granted citizenship of Bhutan by His Majesty The Fourth King in 2006. He was also awarded an OBE in 2005 by Queen Elizabeth II for services to British-Bhutan relations and was awarded the Bhutan Order of Merit (Gold) by the King of Bhutan in 2017. He has made over a hundred and sixty educational television programmes for Bhutan Broadcasting Service and is a Founder of the Bhutan Society of the United Kingdom. For six years prior to becoming the first United Kingdom’s Honorary Consul in Bhutan, Michael Rutland held the appointment of the first Honorary Consul of Bhutan in the United Kingdom.