Anne Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe


Anne Emily Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe was the daughter of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, who served in Conservative governments as Lord President of the Council and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. She served as Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria.

Family and early life

Lady Anne Spencer-Churchill was born on 14 November 1854, in London. She was the fourth daughter of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, who served in Conservative governments as Lord President of the Council and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his wife, Lady Frances Vane, daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry. Lady Anne had two brothers and five sisters. The children rarely saw their mother, as they were raised by servants. Her brother Lord Randolph Churchill later became a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer. Through him, Anne was the aunt of Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill.

Marriage

On 11 June 1874, Lady Anne was married to James Henry Robert Innes-Ker, Marquess of Bowmont and Cessford, eldest son of the sixth Duke of Roxburghe. He succeeded his father as the seventh Duke of Roxburghe in 1879, and Anne became The Duchess of Roxburghe. He died in 1892.
In 1883, she was appointed Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria by the Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and served in that capacity until 1885. In 1892, when Gladstone again came to power, his policy of Home Rule for Ireland had alienated many of the upper classes, and no lady of ducal rank could be found who was willing to serve as Mistress of the Robes. The post therefore remained vacant, while the Duchess of Roxburghe and the Dowager Duchess of Atholl performed the duties of the office. In 1906 she christened the newest and largest ship then in the world, the Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania.
During the First World War, she served as President of the Haddingtonshire Branch of the British Red Cross Society. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1919 New Year Honours.
She died in 1923 in London, at the home of her daughter Lady Evelyn and her husband, Colonel William Collins, after a lengthy illness.

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