HRH Princess Alexandra, the Hon Lady Ogilvy KG, GCVO, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, celebrates her 80th birthday today.
She was born on Christmas Day 1936, at 3, Belgrave Square, London, the town house of her parents, named Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel. At the time of her birth she was sixth in line of succession to the throne, She is the second child of HRH The Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, 1st Duke of Kent, KG KT GCMG GCVO PC (1902-1942), and his wife HRH Princess Marina of Greece & Denmark, CI, GCVO, GBE (1906-68), and was a granddaughter of King George V & Queen Mary. She was a niece of King Edward VIII, and King George VI. Her mother was a cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and in the web of royal inter-connections is both a second cousin and a first cousin once removed of the Prince of Wales.
Princess Alexandra was christened in the Private Chapel of Buckingham Palace on 9 February 1937, and her godparents were her uncle King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the aunt by marriage, the Queen of Norway (her great-aunt); Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark (her maternal grandmother); Princess Olga of Yugoslavia (her maternal aunt); the Princess Beatrice (her paternal great-great-aunt); the Earl of Athlone (her paternal great-uncle); and Count Karl Theodor of Törring-Jettenbach (her maternal uncle by marriage). Of her godparents, only the King and Queen and the Earl of Athlone were present.
On 25 August, 1942, her father was killed in a flying accident in Caithness whilst on active service. Her elder brother, HRH Prince Edward (born 9 Oct, 1935), succeeded as 2nd Duke of Kent (Peerage of the UK, cr 1934). Alexandra was followed by a younger brother, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, born just a few weeks before their father's tragic death.
Princess Alexandra was the first British princess to attend a boarding school, at Heathfield, near Ascot, and was later educated in Paris.
From the late1950s, Princess Alexandra carried out an extensive programme of engagements in support of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, both in the United Kingdom and overseas. Taking part in roughly 120 engagements each year, She was one of the most active members of the royal family. She carried out 110 engagements in 2012. However, in April 2013, she cancelled her engagements due to polymyalgia rheumatica. In 2022, she was still listed as a working member of the royal family, attending numerous ceremonial and charitable engagements.
In 1959, she carried out an extensive tour of Australia, and attended the Queensland Centenary Celebrations. In 1961, HRH visited Hong Kong and made a visit to Aberdeen Fish Market, Lok Ma Chau police station and So Uk Estate, a public housing complex.The princess returned to Australia in 1967 for a private holiday, but also carried out engagements in Canberra and Melbourne. The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane is named in her honour. She represented the Queen when Nigeria gained its independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, and opened the first Parliament on 3 October. Later overseas tours included visits to Canada, Italy, Oman, Hungary, Norway, Japan, Thailand, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. She launched the New Zealand Leander-class frigate HMNZS Waikato at Harland and Wolff, Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1965. Princess Alexandra opened the Victoria-to-Brixton section of London Underground's Victoria line, and in May 1973 she was introduced to both teams and presented the Scottish Cup to winners in the 1973 Scottish Cup Final. She again represented the Queen at the celebrations of independence from the United Kingdom of Saint Lucia in 1979. The princess opened the new hospital in Harlow, Essex, named in her honour on 27 April 1965.
HRH served as chancellor of Lancaster University from its foundation in 1964 until she relinquished the post in 2004 (when she also accepted an honorary degree in Music). She also served as the first chancellor of the University of Mauritius. She is also an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Faculty of Anæsthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Royal College of Physicians. She is also the president of Alexandra Rose Day, which was founded in honour of her great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra. She was also patron of The Royal School, Hampstead. She was president of WWF-UK until 2011.
Until it was abolished in 2013, Princess Alexandra received £225,000 per year from the Civil List to cover the cost of official expenses, although as with the other members of the royal family (except the Duke of Edinburgh) the Queen repaid this amount to HM Treasury. Princess Alexandra lives at Thatched House Lodge in Richmond, London, a Crown property purchased on a 150-year lease from the Crown Estate Commissioners by the Hon Angus Ogilvy after their wedding in 1963. She also has use of a grace-and-favour apartment at St James's Palace in London.
Princess Alexandra is the patron of the Blackie Foundation Trust, a charity dedicated to the promotion of research and education in homoeopathy. She is also a patron of the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals; the English National Opera; the London Philharmonic Choir; the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; Wigmore Hall; the Florence Nightingale Foundation; the not-for-profit housing association Anchor; the charity Independent Age; St Christopher's Hospice in Sydenham, England; Core, a National charity in London dedicated to funding research into digestive diseases and which also publishes information leaflets on the most common diseases of the gut and liver; the Nature in Art Trust; and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), the oldest drama school in the English-speaking world. She has been the patron of the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton since 1954 and of Alzheimer's Society since 1990. She is also the royal patron of Children and Families Across Borders (CFAB),[56] a charity dedicated to reuniting children who have been separated from their families. She is patron of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, which received its royal style in 2012 during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. In her role as president of Sightsavers UK, she visited Washington D.C. in October 2016 to attend the Neglected Tropical Diseases NGDO Network conference partnership reception. In November 2016, one month ahead of Alexandra's 80th birthday, the Queen held a reception at Buckingham Palace in honour of the work of her charities.
Princess Alexandra's military appointments:
Canada 1960–2010: Colonel-in-Chief, The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada, Canada 1977: Colonel-in-Chief, The Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary's), United Kingdom 1955: Patron, Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service, United Kingdom 1998: Lady Sponsor, of HMS Kent, United Kingdom 1957–1968: Colonel-in-Chief, of Durham Light Infantry, United Kingdom 1968–2002: Deputy Colonel-in-Chief, of Light Infantry, United Kingdom 1977–2006: Colonel-in-Chief, of King's Own Royal Border Regiment, United Kingdom 2002–2007: Colonel-in-Chief, of Light Infantry United Kingdom 1967: Honorary Colonel, of the North Irish Horse, United Kingdom 1975: Royal Honorary Colonel, of The Royal Yeomanry, United Kingdom 1992: Deputy Colonel-in-Chief, of The Queen's Royal Lancers, United Kingdom 2007: Royal Colonel, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, United Kingdom 1966: Patron and Air Chief Commandant, of Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service, United Kingdom 2000–2013: Honorary Air Commodore, of RAF Cottesmore.
Princess Alexandra married at Westminster Abbey, 24 April, 1963, the Hon Angus James Robert Bruce Ogilvy (born 14 September, 1928), a younger son of David Ogilvy, 7th Earl of Airlie, KT, GCVO, MC (1893-1968), Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and his wife the former Lady Alexandra Marie Bridget Coke (who died 1984), daughter of the 3rd Earl of Leicester, GCVO, CMG (1848-1941).
Her husband was knighted in 1988, and sworn of the Privy Council, 31 Dec, 1996, a rare honour for a junior member of the Royal Family. Sir Angus died 26 December, 2004.
From her birth until her marriage in 1963 she was styled HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent, and from 1963 until 1988, styled HRH Princess Alexandra, the Hon Mrs Angus Ogilvy, and from 1988 HRH Princess Alexandra, the Hon Lady Ogilvy.
She was invested GCVO, on her 24th birthday, Christmas Day, 1960, and appointed a Lady of the Most Noble of Order of the Garter, on St George's Day 23 April, 2003.
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