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- Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 ? 24 March 1953) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from the accession of her husband, King George V, in 1910 until his death in 1936. She was concurrently Empress of India.
Although technically a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, she was born and raised in the United Kingdom. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck, who was of German extraction, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, who was a granddaughter of King George III. She was informally known as "May", after her birth month.
At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an influenza pandemic. The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor's only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.
As queen consort from 1910, she supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George's death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne; but to her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, George VI, until his death in 1952. She died the following year, during the reign of her granddaughter Elizabeth II, who had not yet been crowned. Among much else, an ocean liner, a battlecruiser, and a university were named in her honour.
Early life
Princess Victoria Mary ("May") of Teck was born on 26 May 1867 at Kensington Palace, London, in the same room where Queen Victoria, her first cousin once removed, had been born 48 years earlier. Queen Victoria came to visit the baby, writing that she was "a very fine one, with pretty little features and a quantity of hair". May would become the first British queen consort born in Britain since Catherine Parr. Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein in the Austrian Empire). Her mother was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III and the third child and younger daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel.
She was baptized in the Chapel Royal of Kensington Palace on 27 July 1867 by Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury. From an early age, she was known to her family, friends and the public by the diminutive name of "May", after her birth month.
May's upbringing was "merry but fairly strict". She was the eldest of four children, and the only daughter, and "learned to exercise her native discretion, firmness, and tact" by resolving her three younger brothers' petty boyhood squabbles. They played with their cousins, the children of the Prince of Wales, who were similar in age. She grew up at Kensington Palace and White Lodge, in Richmond Park, which was granted by Queen Victoria on permanent loan, and was educated at home by her mother and governess (as were her brothers until they were sent to boarding schools). The Duchess of Teck spent an unusually long time with her children for a lady of her time and class, and enlisted May in various charitable endeavors, which included visiting the tenements of the poor.
Although May was a great-grandchild of George III, she was only a minor member of the British royal family. Her father, the Duke of Teck, had no inheritance or wealth and carried the lower royal style of Serene Highness because his parents' marriage was morganatic. The Duchess of Teck was granted a parliamentary annuity of £5,000 and received about £4,000 a year from her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, but she donated lavishly to dozens of charities. Prince Francis was deeply in debt and moved his family abroad with a small staff in 1883, in order to economize. They traveled throughout Europe, visiting their various relations. For a time they stayed in Florence, Italy, where May enjoyed visiting the art galleries, churches, and museums. She was fluent in English, German, and French.
In 1885, the family returned to London and lived for some time in Chester Square. May was close to her mother, and acted as an unofficial secretary, helping to organised parties and social events. She was also close to her aunt, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and wrote to her every week. During the First World War, the Crown Princess of Sweden helped pass letters from May to her aunt, who lived in enemy territory in Germany until her death in 1916.
Engagements
In 1886, May was a debutante in her first season, and was introduced at court. Her status as the only unmarried British princess who was not descended from Queen Victoria made her a suitable candidate for the royal family's most eligible bachelor, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, her second cousin once removed and the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.
On 3 December 1891 at Luton Hoo, country residence of Danish Ambassador Christian Frederick de Falbe, Albert Victor proposed marriage to May and she accepted. The choice of May as bride for the Duke owed much to Queen Victoria's fondness for her, as well as to her strong character and sense of duty. However, Albert Victor died six weeks later, in a recurrence of the worldwide 1889?90 influenza pandemic, before the date was fixed for their wedding.
Albert Victor's brother, Prince George, Duke of York, now second in line to the throne, evidently became close to May during their shared period of mourning, and Queen Victoria still thought of her as a suitable candidate to marry a future king. The public was also anxious that the Duke of York should marry and settle the succession. In May 1893, George proposed, and May accepted. They were soon deeply in love, and their marriage was a success. George wrote to May every day they were apart and, unlike his father, never took a mistress.
May married Prince George, Duke of York, in London on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace. The new Duke and Duchess of York lived in York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, and in apartments in St James's Palace. York Cottage was a modest house for royalty, but it was a favorite of George, who liked a relatively simple life. They had six children: Edward, Albert, Mary, Henry, George, and John.
The children were put into the care of a nanny, as was usual in upper-class families at the time. The first nanny was dismissed for insolence and the second for abusing the children. This second woman, anxious to suggest that the children preferred her to anyone else, would pinch Edward and Albert whenever they were about to be presented to their parents so that they would start crying and be speedily returned to her. On discovery, she was replaced by her effective and much-loved assistant, Charlotte Bill.
Sometimes, Mary and George appear to have been distant parents. At first, they failed to notice the nanny's abuse of the young princes Edward and Albert, and their youngest son, Prince John, was housed in a private farm on the Sandringham Estate, in Bill's care, perhaps to hide his epilepsy from the public. However, despite Mary's austere public image and her strait-laced private life, she was a caring mother in many respects, revealing a fun-loving and frivolous side to her children and teaching them history and music.
Edward wrote fondly of his mother in his memoirs: "Her soft voice, her cultivated mind, the cozy room overflowing with personal treasures were all inseparable ingredients of the happiness associated with this last hour of a child's day ... Such was my mother's pride in her children that everything that happened to each one was of the utmost importance to her. With the birth of each new child, Mama started an album in which she painstakingly recorded each progressive stage of our childhood". He expressed a less charitable view, however, in private letters to his wife after his mother's death: "My sadness was mixed with incredulity that any mother could have been so hard and cruel towards her eldest son for so many years and yet so demanding at the end without relenting a scrap. I'm afraid the fluids in her veins have always been as icy cold as they are now in death."
As Duke and Duchess of York, George and May carried out a variety of public duties. In 1897, she became the patron of the London Needlework Guild in succession to her mother. The guild, initially established as The London Guild in 1882, was renamed several times and was named after May between 1914 and 2010. Samples of her own embroidery range from chair seats to tea cozies.
On 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died, and May's father-in-law ascended the throne. For most of the rest of that year, George and May were known as the "Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York". For eight months they toured the British Empire, visiting Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Africa and Canada. No royal had undertaken such an ambitious tour before. She broke down in tears at the thought of leaving her children, who were to be left in the care of their grandparents, for such a long time.
Princess of Wales (1901?1910)
On 9 November 1901, nine days after arriving back in Britain and on the King's sixtieth birthday, George was created Prince of Wales. The family moved their London residence from St James's Palace to Marlborough House. As Princess of Wales, May accompanied her husband on trips to Austria-Hungary and Württemberg in 1904. The following year, she gave birth to her last child, John. It was a difficult labor
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7466/mary_of_teck
- British monarch, Queen consort of King George V. The daughter of the impoverished Francis, Duke of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, her full name and title at birth was Her Serene Highness Princess Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes of Teck, popularly known as Princess May. She was engaged to Prince Albert Victor, elder son of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in 1891. She accepted his proposal only because it was expected of her. After the prince's sudden death, she became engaged to his brother, Prince George, Duke of Clarence, with whom she had much more in common. They were married on July 6, 1893 at St. James Palace. Theirs was an exceptionally successful marriage, producing one daughter and five sons. Upon Edward VII's accession in 1901, the couple became Prince and Princess of Wales. Edward died in 1910, and they were crowned King and Queen on June 22, 1911. Widowed in 1936, Queen Mary lived to see her eldest son, Edward VIII abdicate the throne, her son George VI reign successfully, and her eldest granddaughter, Elizabeth, come to the throne in 1952. Regarded as the matriarch of the royal family, her funeral and lying-in-state created unprecedented scenes of public mourning.
Bio by: Kristen Conrad
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186 - 1953 (176 years)