#QUEEN VICTORIA FAMILY TREE WW1 FULL#

She travelled the full length and breadth of the country visiting ATS units as well as canteens, and the five military command stations. During the Second World War, the Princess Royal was rarely seen out of her uniform of Chief Controller and later Controller Commandant of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and Harewood House was turned into a makeshift convalescent hospital, where Mary once again employed her nursing skills. In January 1932 George V created Mary the Princess Royal. She became the first female Chancellor of a University when she accepted the position at Leeds in 1951. As patron of the Yorkshire Ladies Council of Education, she was a firm advocate of the need for girls and women to be educated, especially within Higher Education. Throughout her life she maintained her interests in girl-guiding, serving as their President from 1920 until her death. In 1956 she was made an honorary General in the British Army for her work with servicemen. In an age before the true horrors of post-traumatic stress were understood, Mary was aware of the need to rehabilitate wounded and disabled soldiers, as well as support their families and assist them in returning to normality. She became Colonel in chief of regiments including The Royal Scots and The Royal Signals and upheld the position of Commandant-in-Chief of the British Red Cross Detachments. She held over fifty patronages including associations with the Leeds Triennial Festival and The Rose Society. In every engagement no matter how brief, she showed the same level of sincere interest to ensure that all felt valued. Her attachment to any charitable cause was never perfunctory. However, that strong sense of duty ensured that she would continue to carry out a vast number of public engagements philanthropic, civic, and regimental over the next forty years, as well as patronages of charities displaying her interests in agriculture, nursing, education, women’s services and equestrianism. To the people of Yorkshire amongst whom she lived for more than forty years, she was seen as their 'Yorkshire Princess.' When she married in 1922, she could quite easily have given up her public life and retreated to the role of an affluent aristocrat’s wife, particularly when she moved down the order of succession. Mary ultimately trained in assisting on surgical wards. Queen Mary was eager to see her daughter at work and when she visited, she was struck by Mary’s unflappable nature and expertise. The Princess is doing, under direction of the matron and sisters, exactly the same work as the other nurses, washing and dressing the babies and helping in the care of the older children.” The Princess impressed the matron on the Alexandra Ward, where she was stationed, with her desire to be treated exactly the same as other trainees. It is understood that Her Royal Highness attends the hospital two mornings a week. In June 1918, the Gentlewoman magazine announced that, “Princess Mary has this week begun a regular course of practical nursing work at the Children’s Hospital. Other princesses and members of the Royal Family had nursed before her, yet she would be the first child of a Monarch to undertake the rigorous training. Mary had already shown an interest in medicine and had listened to medical lectures given by Sir James Cattle at Buckingham Palace. Thus in 1918 when she reached her twenty-first birthday, she asked her father for a rather unusual gift to be permitted to train and work as a paediatric nurse. Mary was not able to experience her first season of coming out as a debutante because of the War. As the only girl, Mary was treated less harshly than her brothers. More than anything he wanted to ensure they comprehended their future position along with their duty. George V may have been strict but in his missives to his children sent from abroad whilst on tour, it is evident that he loved them. Princess Mary shared many of her brothers lessons until they left for Osborne College to embark on their naval training. Yet despite these somewhat stifling surroundings, Mary was educated with a broad and somewhat innovative curriculum designed by her mother, Queen Mary, in academic as well as practical and domestic subjects and secretarial skills to ensure that she was not just prepared for every eventuality in her future but that she also developed a social conscience.

There was a strict adherence to punctuality, behaviour, and the correct attire and films still survive of the children carrying out military drills at a tender age. George considered himself a naval man and he thus looked to his experience of the Navy in his parenting style.

Queen victoria family tree ww1