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Sonia Rosemary Keppel
Sonia Rosemary Cubitt, (''née'' Keppel, previously The Hon. Mrs. Cubitt; 24 May 1900 – 16 August 1986) was a British socialite, author and aristocrat. She was the first wife of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe and through her only daughter Rosalind, was the maternal grandmother of Queen Camilla. She is also known as the daughter of Alice Keppel, a mistress of King Edward VII. Childhood Sonia Rosemary Keppel was born on 24 May 1900, as the youngest child of the Hon. George Keppel (1865-1947) and Alice Frederica Keppel (née Edmonstone) (1868-1947), youngest child of Sir William Edmonstone, 4th Baronet. Her father George was the youngest son of William Keppel, 7th Earl of Albemarle and his wife Sophia Mary Keppel (née MacNab), while her mother Alice was a British society hostess and a long-time royal mistress of King Edward VII Her only sibling was the English writer and socialite Violet Trefusis (née Keppel). Marriage and children Sonia met her future husband the Hon. ...
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Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire is the 9th-most populous county in England. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, located in the north of the county. The county is bordered by Dorset to the south-west, Wiltshire to the north-west, Berkshire to the north, Surrey to the north-east, and West Sussex to the south east. The county is geographically diverse, with upland rising to and mostly south-flowing rivers. There are areas of downland and marsh, and two national parks: the New Forest National Park, New Forest and part of the South Downs National Park, South Downs, which together cover 45 per cent of Hampshire. Settled about 14,000 years ago, Hampshire's recorded history dates to Roman Britain, when its chi ...
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Coldstream Guards
The Coldstream Guards is the oldest continuously serving regular regiment in the British Army. As part of the Household Division, one of its principal roles is the protection of the monarchy; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonial occasions. The Regiment has consistently provided formations on deployments around the world and has fought in the majority of the major conflicts in which the British Army has been engaged. The Regiment has been in continuous service and has never been amalgamated. It was formed in 1650 as 'Monck's Regiment of Foot' and was then renamed 'The Lord General's Regiment of Foot Guards' after the restoration in 1660. With Monck's death in 1670 it was again renamed 'The Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards' after the location in Scotland from which it marched to help restore the monarchy in 1660. Its name was again changed to 'The Coldstream Guards' in 1855 and this is still its present title. Today, the Regiment consists of: Regimental Head ...
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Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Baron Carington of Upton, (6 June 1919 – 9July 2018), was a British Conservative Party politician and hereditary peer who served as Defence Secretary from 1970 to 1974, Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982, Chairman of the General Electric Company from 1983 to 1984, and Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. In Margaret Thatcher's first government, he played a major role in negotiating the Lancaster House Agreement that ended the racial conflict in Rhodesia and enabled the creation of Zimbabwe. Carrington was Foreign Secretary in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. He took full responsibility for the failure to foresee this and resigned. As NATO secretary general, he helped prevent a war between Greece and Turkey during the 1987 Aegean crisis. Following the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, Carrington was created a life peer ...
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Denis Alexander, 6th Earl Of Caledon
Earl of Caledon, of Caledon in the County of Tyrone, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for James Alexander, 1st Viscount Caledon. He was a merchant who had made an enormous fortune in India. He also represented the constituency of Londonderry City in the Irish House of Commons. Alexander had already been created Baron Caledon in 1790 and Viscount Caledon, of Caledon in the County of Tyrone, in 1797, also in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1784, James Alexander purchased a city house in Dublin at Rutland Square (now Parnell Square) where he lived when serving as an MP for Derry. He was succeeded by his son, the second Earl. He was the first Governor of the Cape Colony and sat in the House of Lords as an Irish Representative Peer from 1804 to 1839. His son, the third Earl, briefly represented County Tyrone in the House of Commons as a Tory and was an Irish Representative Peer between 1841 and 1855. His eldest son, the fourth Earl, sat in the House of L ...
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Ghislaine Alexander
Ghislaine Marie-Rose Edith Alexander (''née'' Dresselhuys; 7 January 1922 – 25 April 2000) was a wealthy heiress and British socialite who was a panelist on the British version of ''What's My Line?''. Life and times Alexander was the only daughter of Cornelius William Dresselhuys and Edith Merandon du Plessis, born at the Dutch consulate in London, where her father was consul. Her parents divorced when Ghislaine was young, and her mother married newspaper publisher Lord Kemsley, who became Alexander's stepfather. She was married three times, first to Major Denis Alexander, 6th Earl of Caledon, then to Henry Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe; both marriages ended in divorce. At the time of her death she was married to Adrian Foley, 8th Baron Foley, a former composer and pianist. Tall and attractive, often described as one of the most beautiful women in the world, Ghislaine Alexander became famous for her appearances as a panelist on Britain's ''What's My Line?'' television quiz show, ...
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Henry Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe
Henry Edward Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe (31 March 1924 – 4 December 2013), was a British peer. He was the son of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe, and Sonia Rosemary Keppel, and the uncle and godfather of Queen Camilla. Education and career Educated at Eton College, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. After the War he became chairman of Holland, Hannen & Cubitts, the family construction firm. He was the London-based Consul-General for Monaco from 1961 to 1968. Family He was married three times without issue: * Ghislaine (née Dresselhuys) Countess of Caledon (ex-wife of Denis Alexander, 6th Earl of Caledon) was married to Lord Ashcombe from 1955 to 1968. In 1972, she married Adrian Foley, 8th Baron Foley. * Virginia Carington (daughter of Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington) was married to Lord Ashcombe from 1973 to 1979. She is now a special aide to the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. * Mary Elizabeth Chipps, the mother o ...
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Mark Shand
Mark Roland Shand (28 June 1951 – 23 April 2014) was a British travel writer and conservationist and the brother of Queen Camilla. Shand was the author of four travel books and as a BBC conservationist, appeared in documentaries related to his journeys, most of which centered on the survival of elephants. His book ''Travels on My Elephant'' became a bestseller and won the Travel Writer of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 1992. He was the chairman of Elephant Family, a wildlife foundation, which he co-founded in 2002. Family, education and marriage Shand was born on 28 June 1951, as the son of Major Bruce Shand (1917–2006) and his wife, Rosalind Cubitt (1921–1994), daughter of the 3rd Baron Ashcombe and Sonia Rosemary Keppel, daughter of Alice Keppel. He was the brother of Camilla, Queen Consort and Annabel Elliot. Shand was educated first at St Ronan's School in Kent and then Milton Abbey School in Dorset. He was expelled from Milton Abbey for alleged ...
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Annabel Elliot
Sonia Annabel Elliot ( Shand; born 2 February 1949) is a British interior designer and antiques dealer. She is the mother of British Conservative politician Ben Elliot, who served as the Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party, and sister of Queen Camilla. Personal life Elliot is the daughter of Major Bruce Shand (1917–2006) and his wife, Rosalind Cubitt (1921–1994), daughter of the 3rd Baron Ashcombe and Sonia Rosemary Keppel. Her elder sister is Queen Camilla, and her brother was travel writer Mark Shand (1951–2014). Elliot went to Florence, Italy, to study fine art. On 27 April 1972, at the age of 23, she married Simon Elliot, a Dorset landowner and son of Air Chief Marshal Sir William Elliot and Rosemary Chancellor. They have three children: Ben, (the current Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party, born 1975); Alice (born 1977); and Catherine (born 1981). Career Elliot is the founder of Annabel Elliot Interior design and antiques, which is based in Dorset. The shop ...
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Camilla, Duchess Of Cornwall
Camilla (born Camilla Rosemary Shand, later Parker Bowles, 17 July 1947) is Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms as the wife of King Charles III. She became queen consort on 8 September 2022, upon the accession of her husband following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Camilla was raised in East Sussex and South Kensington in England and educated in England, Switzerland, and France. In 1973, she married British Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles; they divorced in 1995. Camilla and Charles were romantically involved periodically both before and during each of their first marriages. Their relationship was highly publicised in the media and attracted worldwide scrutiny. In 2005, Camilla married Charles in the Windsor Guildhall, which was followed by a televised Anglican blessing at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. From the marriage until her husband's accession in 2022, she was known as the Duchess of Cornwall. Camilla ...
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Bruce Shand
Bruce Middleton Hope Shand (22 January 1917 – 11 June 2006) was an officer in the British Army. He is best known as the father of Queen Camilla. Early life Shand was born in London into an upper class family whose ancestors had moved to England from Scotland. He was the son of Philip Morton Shand (1888–1960), an architectural writer and critic who was a close friend of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier and whose company, ''Finmar'', imported furniture by Alvar Aalto into Great Britain. His mother was Edith Marguerite Harrington (1893–1981), later Mrs. Herbert Charles Tippet. Bruce Shand's parents divorced when he was three years old. His father went on to remarry three times. Shand did not see his father again until he was 18. One of his two half-sisters was Baroness Howe of Idlicote, wife of former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Deputy Prime Minister Lord Howe. Shand's mother remarried Herbert Charles Tippet, a golf course designer. Contrary to some newspaper r ...
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Major
Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators, major is one rank above captain, and one rank below lieutenant colonel. It is considered the most junior of the field officer ranks. Background Majors are typically assigned as specialised executive or operations officers for battalion-sized units of 300 to 1,200 soldiers while in some nations, like Germany, majors are often in command of a company. When used in hyphenated or combined fashion, the term can also imply seniority at other levels of rank, including ''general-major'' or ''major general'', denoting a low-level general officer, and '' sergeant major'', denoting the most senior non-commissioned officer (NCO) of a military unit. The term ''major'' can also be used with a hyphen to denote the leader of a military band su ...
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Thomas Cubitt
Thomas Cubitt (25 February 1788 – 20 December 1855) was a British master builder, notable for his employment in developing many of the historic streets and squares of London, especially in Belgravia, Pimlico and Bloomsbury. His great-great-great grand daughter is Queen Camilla. Background The son of a Norfolk carpenter, he journeyed to India as ship's carpenter from which he earned sufficient funds to start his own building firm in 1810 on Gray's Inn Road, London where he was one of the first builders to have a 'modern' system of employing all the trades under his own management. Work Cubitt's first major building was the London Institution in Finsbury Circus, built in 1815. After this he worked primarily on speculative housing at Camden Town, Islington, and especially at Highbury Park, Stoke Newington. His development of areas of Bloomsbury, including Gordon Square and Tavistock Square, began in 1820, for a group of landowners including the Duke of Bedford. He ...
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