Marion Crawford
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Marion Kirk Buthlay CVO (née Crawford; 5 June 1909 – 11 February 1988) was a Scottish educator and
governess A governess is a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching; depending on terms of their employment, they may or ma ...
to
Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II. ...
and Princess Elizabeth (the future
Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...
). Known then by her maiden name, Elizabeth and Margaret affectionately called her Crawfie. Crawford worked for the Royal Family from 1933 to 1949. Upon her departure, she agreed to author ''The Little Princesses'', a book which told the story of her time with the family. Though given tentative approval by the royal family to publish anonymously, Crawford was completely ostracised by them after her writing appeared under her name; she left Nottingham Cottage, her
grace and favour A grace-and-favour home is a residential property owned by a monarch, government, or other owner and leased rent-free to a person as part of the perquisites of their employment, or in gratitude for services rendered. Usage of the term is chief ...
house, and no member of the family ever spoke to her again.


Early life and royal governess

Crawford was born the daughter of a mechanical engineer's clerk, at Gatehead, East Ayrshire, on 5 June 1909. She was raised in
Dunfermline Dunfermline (; , ) is a city, parish, and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland, from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. Dunfermline was the de facto capital of the Kingdom of Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries. The earliest ...
,
Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...
, and taught at Edinburgh's Moray House Institute. While studying to become a child psychologist, she took a summer job as the governess for Lord Elgin's children. This led her to take a role in the household of the Duke and Duchess of York (later
King George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of In ...
and Queen Elizabeth), as the Duchess was a distant relative of Lord Elgin. After one year the arrangement was made permanent. Crawford became one of the governesses of Princess Elizabeth and
Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II. ...
. Following the abdication of
King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January ...
in 1936, the Duke of York ascended the throne as King George VI, and Elizabeth became the
heir presumptive An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of a person with a better claim to the position in question. This is in contrast to an heir app ...
. Crawford remained in service to the King and Queen, and did not retire until Princess Elizabeth's marriage in 1947, Crawford herself having married two months earlier. Crawford had already delayed her own marriage for 16 years so as not to, as she saw it, abandon the King and Queen.


Retirement and authorship

Upon her retirement in 1948, Crawford was given Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of
Kensington Palace Kensington Palace is a royal residence situated within Kensington Gardens in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It has served as a residence for the British royal family since the 17th century and is currently the ...
, as a
grace and favour A grace-and-favour home is a residential property owned by a monarch, government, or other owner and leased rent-free to a person as part of the perquisites of their employment, or in gratitude for services rendered. Usage of the term is chief ...
home. Queen Mary, the princesses' grandmother, also provided it with antique furniture and flower prints as a mark of her appreciation. After their wedding, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh conducted an overseas tour, visiting Canada and the United States of America. Shortly afterwards, Bruce and Beatrice Gould, editors of the large circulation American magazine ''
Ladies' Home Journal ''Ladies' Home Journal'' was an American magazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th centur ...
'', contacted
Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a royal official residence, residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and r ...
and the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 ...
to seek stories for publication across the Atlantic. Although the approach was refused by the Palace, the British government proved keen on the idea and suggested Marion Crawford, as the recently retired governess of the princesses. In April 1949, having heard of the offer,
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was al ...
wrote to Crawford, saying:
I do feel, most definitely, that you should not write and sign articles about the children, as people in positions of confidence with us must be utterly oyster. If you, the moment you finished teaching Margaret, started writing about her and Lilibet, well, we should never feel confidence in anyone again.
However, the Queen did give a carefully qualified approval for her to anonymously provide some assistance, writing:
Mr ermotMorrah (the man chosen to write the articles), who I saw the other day, seemed to think that you could help him with his articles and get paid from America. This would be quite all right as long as your name did not come into it. Nevertheless, I do feel most strongly that you must resist the allure of American money and persistent editors and say No No No to offers of dollars for articles about something as private and as precious as our family.
However, the contract with the Goulds stipulated: "You will further consider publication of the articles without Her Majesty's consent (possibly with only the consent of Princess Elizabeth, or no consent) and under your own name, on terms to be arranged." In October 1949, Lady Astor sent a copy of the manuscript from the Goulds to Queen Elizabeth for her approval. The Queen was deeply distressed, finding it shockingly frank, especially Crawford's revelations of the King's moods and the Queen's chilly relationship with
Wallis Simpson Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Spencer and then Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986) was an American socialite and the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (former King Edward VIII). Their intentio ...
. She replied to Lady Astor saying: "The governess has gone off her head", and had her private secretary send a further letter to Lady Astor. This contained the Queen's annotations on the manuscript with the request that passages of particular concern be removed. The Goulds were taken aback as they considered the account sympathetic, but they kept the response from Crawford. As the first servant to cash in on the private lives of the royals, Crawford was ostracised by the royal family, and they never spoke to her again. So deep was the feeling of betrayal within the royal family that, for years afterward, servants who spoke publicly for money were said to be "doing a Crawfie". Crawford's unauthorised work was published in '' Woman's Own'' in the UK and in the ''Ladies' Home Journal'' in the United States, becoming a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. A book, ''The Little Princesses'', also sold exceptionally well. Later she wrote stories about Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. She also put her name to ''Woman's Own''s "Crawfie's Column", a social diary written by journalists several weeks in advance. In 1955, one column contained a reference to the
Trooping the Colour Trooping the Colour is a ceremonial event performed every year on Horse Guards Parade in London, United Kingdom, by regiments of Household Division, to celebrate the King's Official Birthday, official birthday of the British sovereign, though t ...
ceremony and the
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races, when in fact they had been cancelled that year because of a national railway strikes. As the stories were written in advance, it was too late to stop their publication, and the truth behind the column was unspooled, leading to her public disgrace.


Later life and death

Courtiers believed that Crawford was deeply under the influence of her husband George Buthlay, whom she married after her retirement, and that he pressured her to capitalise on her royal connections, as he himself did. Buthlay boasted of it in his business transactions, and had her ask the royal family to change their bank account to Drummonds, the bank for which he worked. Crawford retired to
Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
, buying a house from the road to Balmoral; she completely withdrew from public life and refused all media requests. Although the royal family regularly drove past her front door on their way to
Balmoral Castle Balmoral Castle () is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, west of Ballater and west of Aberdeen. The estate and its original castle were bought ...
, they never visited. When her husband died in 1977, she descended into depression and attempted suicide, leaving a note saying: "The world has passed me by and I can't bear those I love to pass me by on the road." Crawford died at Hawkhill House (a nursing home in Aberdeen) on 11 February 1988. Neither the Queen, the Queen Mother nor Princess Margaret sent a wreath to her funeral. Her story was featured in a 2000
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
documentary ''The Nanny Who Wouldn't Keep Mum''. In 2021, Crawford was the focus of a novel by Tessa Arlen, ''In Royal Service to the Queen: A Novel of the Queen's Governess''. ISBN 978-0593102480.


Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford, Marion 1909 births 1988 deaths 20th-century Scottish educators 20th-century Scottish women educators 20th-century Scottish memoirists 20th-century Scottish women writers Academics of the University of Edinburgh Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order Governesses to the British Royal Household People from Dunfermline Scottish biographers Scottish governesses British women memoirists 20th-century British women educators Nannies