Lady Cynthia Colville

Lady Helen Cynthia Colville, née Crewe-Milnes, DCVO DBE JP FRCM (20 May 1884 – 15 June 1968) was an English courtier and social worker, serving as a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary, while at the same time devoting her energies to alleviating the suffering of Shoreditch, one of the poorest areas of the East End of London.

Family

Helen Cynthia Crewe-Milnes was the third daughter of Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, by his first wife, the former Sibyl Graham, daughter of Sir Frederick Graham (of the Graham Baronets of Netherby) and Lady Jane St Maur. She had an older sister, an older brother, and a twin sister.

Lady Sibyl died young, and her children lived for a time with their unmarried uncle the 3rd Baron Crewe, rejoining their father, a Liberal politician, when he was posted to Dublin as Gladstone's Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (from 1892–95). In 1899 Robert Crewe-Milnes re-married, choosing Margaret Etrenne Hannah "Peggy" Primrose (1881-1951), daughter of Lord Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister (1894-1895), and his wife, Hannah, an heiress to the Rothschild fortune. Cynthia's new stepmother was only 18; Cynthia and her stepmother were but three years apart in age.

Cynthia's maternal uncles and aunts included Violet Hermione, who married Douglas Graham, 5th Duke of Montrose; Margaret Frances, who married as her second husband James Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam; and Hilda Georgina, who married Tory politician Denison Faber, 1st Baron Wittenham.

Helen Cynthia married the Hon. George Charles Colville, younger son of the 1st Viscount Colville of Culross and the Hon. Cecile Carrington, on 21 January 1908. Their children were:

• David Richard Colville (b. 11 May 1909 – d. 9 February 1987)
• Major Philip Robert Colville (b. 7 November 1910 – d. 11 April 1997)
• Sir John Rupert Colville (b. 28 January 1915 – d. 1987), the diarist

Work

She started her work in Shoreditch, which was a slum (a "socially derelict square mile", as her son described the area), before World War I, focusing on infant mortality. The Socialist borough council co-opted her to their public health committee. In 1952 she was appointed a lay justice at Bow Street Magistrates' Court.

Other

She raised eyebrows when she introduced a commoner, Thomas Benjamin Frederick Davis, albeit a self-made man, into her own stratum of society, persuading the Queen to invite him to dinner on the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III in the Cowes Week regatta.

Memorials

In 1948 Shoreditch Council renamed a housing estate on Felton Street estate as "the Colville estate" in honour of her long association. In 1963, Lady Cynthia published her autobiography, Crowded Life.

Honours and awards

• She was invested as an Officer, Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (OStJ)
• She held the office of Justice of the Peace (JP) for the County of London
• She held the office of Woman of the Bedchamber to HM Queen Mary between 1923–1953
• She was invested as a Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (DCVO) 11 May 1937
• She was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1953
• She was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law (LL.D.) by Leeds University
• She was invested as a Fellow, Royal College of Music (FRCM)

Death

She died on 15 June 1968, aged 84, at 4 Mulberry Walk, Chelsea, London, England.

Citations

• L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884-1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London, U.K.: Heraldry Today, 1972), page 90
• Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware:Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd., 2003), volume 1, page 867

External links

• BBC report
• Peerage.com website
• Biography of Lady Margaret Etrenne Hannah Crewe-Milnes (née Primrose)

• thepeerage.com Sir John Rupert Colville
• Footprints in Time (Chapter 4, "Mr Salthouse"; 1974) by John Colville.
• Footprints in Time (Chapter 5, "Echoes of the Morning"; 1976) by John Colville.
• The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 34396. p. 3084. 11 May 1937. Retrieved 1 September 2015.