Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary (April 25, 1897 - March 28, 1965) was the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the sister of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and aunt of the current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. In the First World War, she performed charity work in support of servicemen and their families. In 1918 when Mary reached her twenty-first birthday, she asked her father for a rather unusual gift; to be permitted to train and work as a paediatric nurse. She was the first child of a Monarch to undertake the rigorous training at Great Ormond Street. She married Henry Lascelles, Viscount Lascelles (later the 6th Earl of Harewood) in 1922 and had two children: George and Gerald. Mary was given the title of Princess Royal in 1932. During the Second World War, she was Controller Commandant of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She held over fifty patronages including associations with the Leeds Triennial Festival and The Rose Society. She became Colonel-in-Chief of regiments including The Royal Scots and The Royal Signals and upheld the position of Commandant-in-Chief of the British Red Cross Detachments.
In an age before the true horrors of post-traumatic stress were understood, Mary was aware of the need to rehabilitate wounded and disabled soldiers, as well as support their families and assist them in returning to normality. In 1956 she was made an honorary General in the British Army for her work with servicemen.
She suffered a fatal heart attack during a walk with her elder son, Lord Harewood, and his children in the grounds of the Harewood House estate. She was 67.
13 июл 2022
