Saturday, August 03, 2024

Pandora Lorna Mary Cooper-Key 1973-2024

 Pandora Lorna Mary Cooper-Key, who died 22 July, 2024, aged 51, was a scion of that landed gentry family, and a half-sister of Cressida Bonas, sometime squeeze of Prince Harry.

Cooper-Key was a ceramicist and accessories designer, who was first diagnosed with cancer more than two decades ago.

She was born in 1973, a daughter of (Kevin) Esmond Peter Cooper-Key (1943-1985), and his former wife the Lady Mary Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon (born 21 February, 1947), daughter of the 6th Earl Howe (1908-1984); and she married in 2006, Matthew C. Mervyn-Jones, son of Mr & Mrs Philip Mervyn-Jones, of Knowl Hill, Berkshire, by whom she had issue, two sons, Bow Esmond Philip, born in 2007, and Nestor Cecil Harmsworth, born in 2010.

Pandora was the first daughter of Lady Mary Gaye Curzon, whose father was the 6th Earl Howe. In 1971, Curzon married Esmond Cooper-Key, the grandson of the 2nd Viscount Rothermere, the owner of The Daily Mail and one of the richest people in Britain. She was born two years later but the marriage was short-lived. Esmond died of a brain tumour aged 42 when Cooper-Key was 11.

Lady Mary Gaye went on to marry another three times, giving Cooper-Key the expansive family that she has credited with helping her through her various illnesses. Her half-siblings from her mother’s marriage to the businessman John Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe are Jacobi, a party organiser, Isabella Calthorpe, the daughter-in-law of Richard Branson, and Georgiana, an artist. Lady Mary Gaye married Jeffrey Bonas in 1988 and the couple had one daughter, Cressida Bonas, who rose to national prominence as a socialite and the former girlfriend of the Duke of Sussex.

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