Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 6 May 1910 until 20 January 1936 as the wife of King-Emperor George V.
For other people named May or Mary of Teck, see Lady May Abel Smith and Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort (sportswoman).Mary of Teck
6 May 1910 – 20 January 1936
22 June 1911
12 December 1911
Princess Victoria Mary of Teck
26 May 1867
Kensington Palace, London, England
24 March 1953 (aged 85)
Marlborough House, London, England
31 March 1953
Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Mary was the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, a German nobleman, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. She was informally known as "May", after the month of her birth. At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales and second in line to the throne. Six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an influenza pandemic. The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor's only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.
As queen consort from 1910, Mary supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George's death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne. To her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, George VI, until his death in 1952. Mary died the following year, ten weeks before her granddaughter Elizabeth II was crowned. An ocean liner, a battlecruiser, and a university were named in her honour.
Princess of Wales
On 9 November 1901, nine days after arriving back in Britain and on the King's 60th birthday, George was created Prince of Wales. The family moved their London residence from St James's Palace to Marlborough House. As Princess of Wales, Mary accompanied her husband on trips to Austria-Hungary and Württemberg in 1904. The following year, she gave birth to her last child, John. It was a difficult labour, and although she recovered quickly, her newborn son developed respiratory problems.[26]
From October 1905 the Prince and Princess of Wales undertook another eight-month tour, this time of India, and the children were once again left in the care of their grandparents.[27] They passed through Egypt both ways and on the way back stopped in Greece. The tour was almost immediately followed by a trip to Spain for the wedding of King Alfonso XIII to Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, at which the bride and groom narrowly avoided assassination.[c] Only a week after returning to Britain, Mary and George went to Norway for the coronation of George's brother-in-law and sister, King Haakon VII and Queen Maud.[28]
Legacy
Actresses who have portrayed Queen Mary include Dame Flora Robson (in A King's Story, 1965), Dame Wendy Hiller (on the London stage in Crown Matrimonial, 1972),[69] Greer Garson (in the television production of Crown Matrimonial, 1974), Judy Loe (in Edward the Seventh, 1975), Dame Peggy Ashcroft (in Edward & Mrs. Simpson, 1978), Phyllis Calvert (in The Woman He Loved, 1988), Gaye Brown (in All the King's Men, 1999), Miranda Richardson (in The Lost Prince, 2003), Margaret Tyzack (in Wallis & Edward, 2005), Claire Bloom (in The King's Speech, 2010), Judy Parfitt (in W.E., 2011), Valerie Dane (in the television version of Downton Abbey, 2013), Dame Eileen Atkins (in Bertie and Elizabeth, 2002 and The Crown, 2016), Geraldine James (in the film version of Downton Abbey, 2019), and Candida Benson (in The Crown, 2022).
Many places and buildings have been named in Mary's honour, including Queen Mary University of London,[70] Queen Mary Reservoir in Surrey,[71] and Queen Mary College in Lahore.[72]
Sir Henry "Chips" Channon wrote that Queen Mary was "above politics ... magnificent, humorous, worldly, in fact nearly sublime, though cold and hard. But what a grand Queen."[73]