Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (born Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott; 25 December 1901 – 29 October 2004), was a member of the British royal family. She was the wife of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the third son of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the mother of Prince William of Gloucester and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
The daughter of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, Scotland's largest landowner, she became by marriage a princess of the United Kingdom, and a sister-in-law of Edward VIII and George VI. She was thus an aunt-by-marriage of Elizabeth II. Alice was extremely well-travelled, both before and after her marriage. At the time of her death at age 102, she was the longest-lived member of the British royal family.
Lady Alice Christabel Montagu-Douglas-Scott was born on 25 December 1901 at Montagu House, Whitehall, London, the third daughter and fifth child of John Montagu-Douglas-Scott, Earl of Dalkeith (later Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry), and his wife, the former Lady Margaret Alice "Molly" Bridgeman, daughter of the 4th Earl of Bradford. Her brothers Walter and William, and her nephew John, all served as Conservative MPs. Through her first cousin Marian Louisa, Lady Elmhirst, she was also connected to Sarah Ferguson, former wife of Alice's great-nephew Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Alice was a descendant, in an unbroken male line, of Charles II through his eldest but illegitimate son, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, a significant political figure in the years preceding the Glorious Revolution. Her birth on Christmas Day, accounted for her middle name, Christabel.
She spent much of her childhood moving between the family's principal houses: Boughton House in Northamptonshire, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway, and Bowhill in the Scottish Borders. Eildon Hall, near Melrose, served as the family's main base.
In her memoirs, Alice described a near‑drowning at the age of 14. While swimming in the Solway Firth she was caught in a current, later recalling:
The next instant my feet touched rocks. I was able to stand up and get my breath back. I had been carried quite a way down the coast—some houses had come and gone on my left—but the rocks proved to be a reef and I was able to scramble through them back to shallow water without further mishap.... In return for my life I had promised to dedicate it to some useful purpose; but there never seemed to be anything that required my help or that I was any use at. So when, through a series of unforeseen circumstances, I one day found myself allotted a life of public duty in the service of my country, a very secret pledge was honoured.
Alice attended the independent St James's School for Girls in West Malvern, Worcestershire, and later travelled to France, Kenya, and India. After her schooling in West Malvern, she spent a year in Paris "before returning home to be presented at Court in 1920". She enjoyed skiing, horse-riding, and hunting, and was also an accomplished watercolourist. One of her paintings, made near Archers Post in Kenya, is now part of the Royal Collection.
During her extended stay in Kenya, from about 1929–1931, she lived in an area associated with the so‑called Happy Valley set and encountered many of its well‑known personalities, including Evelyn Waugh, who was then travelling in Africa.
In 1935, Alice returned to the United Kingdom after learning that her father's health had been deteriorating. In August that year she became engaged to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. They were married on 6 November in a private ceremony in the Private Chapel at Buckingham Palace. A large wedding at Westminster Abbey had originally been planned, but following the death of the Duke of Buccleuch from cancer on 19 October, and in view of the King's own declining health, the event was scaled down to a more intimate setting.
Although the day was cold and wet, an estimated crowd of more than one million people lined the route from the Palace to the railway station to see the couple depart on their honeymoon. From this period she was often referred to as the "Winter Princess".
Initially the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester lived at the Royal Pavilion in Aldershot, where the Duke was taking the Army staff course. Following the abdication of Edward VIII in December 1936, the Duke, who was the first adult in the line of succession and therefore the designated regent in case of an early accession of his niece Princess Elizabeth, left the army to take on more public duties.
The Duchess suffered two miscarriages, before giving birth to two sons:
Prince William of Gloucester (18 December 1941 – 28 August 1972)
Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (born 26 August 1944). He married a Danish commoner, Birgitte van Deurs Henriksen, on 8 July 1972. The couple later had three children.
The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester travelled extensively, undertaking various engagements. The public appearances of the Duchess included launching HMS Gloucester on 19 October 1937. During World War II, the Duchess worked with the Red Cross and the Order of St John. She became commandant of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1939 on appointment to the rank of Senior controller, changed to Air commandant on 12 March 1940, she served in this position alongside Jane Trefusis Forbes as director of the WAAF. She was appointed Air chief commandant on 4 March 1943. She then continued to serve as commandant of the WAAF, alongside Mary Welsh as director of the WAAF, until August 1944. When the WAAF became the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) in 1949, she was appointed an Air chief commandant (equivalent to Air vice-marshal) in the new service on 1 February 1949. She was promoted to Air marshal on 1 September 1968, and to air chief marshal in the Royal Air Force on 23 February 1990. She also served as deputy to Queen Elizabeth, the consort of George VI, as Commandant-in-Chief of the Nursing Corps.
From 1945 to 1947, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester lived in Canberra, where the Duke was serving as Governor-General of Australia. He had visited Australia a number of times. In 1969, the Duke and Duchess were invited to their niece Moyra Dawnay's wedding to Timothy de Zoete, grandson of cricketer Herman de Zoete.
The Duchess of Gloucester served as Colonel-in-Chief or deputy Colonel-in-Chief of a dozen regiments in the British Army, including the King's Own Scottish Borderers, the Northamptonshire Regiment, the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire), the Royal Anglian Regiment, the Royal Hussars, and the Royal Irish Rangers (27th Inniskilling); also, the Royal Corps of Transport. She was Patron of the Girls' Day School Trust and from 1940 until her death Patron of Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh.