Lady Cynthia Colville

Lady Helen Cynthia Colville, née Milnes, later Crewe-Milnes, DCVO DBE JP FRCM (20 May 1884 – 15 June 1968) was an English courtier and social worker, serving as a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary, while at the same time devoting her energies to alleviating the suffering of Shoreditch, one of the poorest areas of the East End of London.

Family

Helen Cynthia Milnes was the third daughter of Robert Milnes,[1] who succeeded when she was 15 months old as 2nd Baron Houghton (making her the Hon. Helen Cynthia Milnes), by his first wife, the former Sibyl Graham, daughter of Sir Frederick Graham (of the Graham Baronets of Netherby) and Lady Jane St Maur. She had an older sister, an older brother, and a twin sister.

Her mother, Lady Houghton, died young, and her children lived for a time with their unmarried uncle the 3rd Baron Crewe, rejoining their father, a Liberal politician, when he was posted to Dublin as Gladstone's Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (from 1892–95).

In 1895, having inherited Lord Crewe's estates on his death the previous year, her father, Lord Houghton adopted the surname Crewe-Milnes and was created Earl of Crewe, making her Lady Cynthia Crewe-Milnes. In 1899, Lord Crewe re-married to Lady Margaret Etrenne Hannah "Peggy" Primrose (1881–1951), daughter of the 5th Earl of Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister from 1894–95, and his wife Hannah, an heiress to the Rothschild fortune. Cynthia's new stepmother was only 18; Cynthia and her stepmother were but three years apart in age.

Cynthia's maternal uncles and aunts included Violet Hermione, who married the 5th Duke of Montrose; Margaret Frances, who married as her second husband the 3rd Earl of Verulam; and Hilda Georgina, who married Tory politician the 1st Baron Wittenham.

Cynthia married the Hon. George Charles Colville, younger son of the 1st Viscount Colville of Culross and the Hon. Cecile Carrington, on 21 January 1908, becoming Lady Cynthia Colville. Their children were:

  • David Richard Colville (b. 11 May 1909 – d. 9 February 1987)
  • Major Philip Robert Colville (b. 7 November 1910 – d. 11 April 1997)
  • Sir John Rupert Colville (b. 28 January 1915 – d. 1987), the diarist.

Work

She started her work in Shoreditch, which was a slum (a "socially derelict square mile", as her son described the area), before World War I, focusing on infant mortality. The Socialist borough council co-opted her to their public health committee.[2]

In September 1950, she was elected the first chairman of British Epilepsy Association.[3]

In February 1952 while serving as Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary it fell to Lady Cynthia Colville to inform Queen Mary of the death of her son George VI.[4]

In 1952 she was appointed a lay justice at Bow Street Magistrates' Court.

Other

She raised eyebrows when she introduced a commoner, Thomas Benjamin Frederick Davis, albeit a self-made man, into her own stratum of society, persuading the Queen to invite him to dinner on the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert (1899) in the Cowes Week regatta.[5]

Memorials

In 1948, Shoreditch Council renamed a housing estate on Felton Street estate as "the Colville estate" in honour of her long association. In 1963, Lady Cynthia published her autobiography, Crowded Life

Honours and awards

NOTE: Lady Cynthia Colville is one of the very few "double dames", having, in her case, been knighted in two separate Orders: the Order of the British Empire and the Royal Victorian Order.

Death

She died on 15 June 1968, aged 84, at 4 Mulberry Walk, Chelsea, London, England.

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References
  1. "Person Page". thepeerage.com.
  2. Footprints in Time (Chapter 4, "Mr Salthouse"; 1974) by John Colville
  3. 'Epilepsy Action history wall', Epilepsy Action, 2010
  4. Vickers, Hugo. "How accurate is The Crown? We sort fact from fiction in the royal drama" – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  5. Footprints in Time (Chapter 5, "Echoes of the Morning"; 1976) by John Colville
  6. "No. 34396". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 May 1937. p. 3084.

Citations
  • L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London, UK: Heraldry Today, 1972), page 90
  • Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware:Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd., 2003), volume 1, page 867
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