Gillian Barbara Devas (nee Hewett) (died 2025)

 Gillian Barbara (Gilly) Devas died 3 September, 2025.

She was a daughter of Colonel Henry Micklem Prescott Hewett (1891-1962), and his wife the former Mary Nina Catherine Beatrice Atwood, and married 1stly, 1956 (div.), and his first wife, Charles Arthur Smith-Bingham (1931-2003), scion of that landed gentry family, son of Arthur Turberville Smith-Bingham, and his wife the former Jean Garland (later wife of the 3rd Baron Ashcombe. She died 1973); and married 2ndly, 1967, as his second wife, Michael Campbell Devas, MC (who died 4 May, 2007), head of that landed gentry family, son of Geoffrey Charles Devas, of Hunton Court, Maidstone, Kent, by his wife the former Joan Campbell Bannerman (1885-1975). She leaves a son from her first marriage, Kim Smith-Bingham (born 1957).

Her son, a former ski-wear businessman, was the first love of Sarah Ferguson (later Duchess of York). Kim first met the then 17-year-old Fergie while he was working as a ranch hand on her mother Susie Barrantes' estate in Argentina. Three years later, they began dating when he moved to Switzerland. Fergie, then working in public relations in London, would stay in his flat in Verbier for a month at a time. And when their romance fizzled out, Kim introduced Sarah to Formula One advertising tycoon Paddy McNally - her last boyfriend before she met Prince Andrew.

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