Lady Pamela Hicks
Pamela Hicks | |
|---|---|
 Pamela Mountbatten with Jawaharlal Nehru as she was about to leave India in June 1948. | |
| Born | Pamela Carmen Louise Mountbatten 19 April 1929 |
| Spouse | David Nightingale Hicks (m.13 January 1960 – 29 March 1998) |
| Children | Edwina Brudenell Ashley Hicks India Hicks |
| Parent(s) | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, formerly Edwina Ashley |
Lady Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks (née Mountbatten; born 19 April 1929) is a British aristocrat. She is the younger daughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma by his wife, Edwina Mountbatten. Through her father, Lady Pamela is a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and a great niece of the last Tsarina of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna. In May 2013, Lady Pamela is 687th in line for the throne.
Family background
Lady Pamela was born in Barcelona in 1929. She is the younger sister of Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma. Through her father, Lady Pamela is a first cousin of the Duke of Edinburgh and a great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria. Through her mother, she is the second great-granddaughter of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. During her youth, Lady Pamela lived with her paternal grandmother, Victoria, Marchioness of Milford Haven, during school holidays.
India
In 1947 Lady Pamela accompanied her parents to India remaining with them throughout her father's term as Viceroy of pre-Independence India and then Governor-General of post-Partition India through 1948, living with them in Government House, New Delhi and the summer Viceregal Lodge in Simla.
Bridesmaid and Lady-in-Waiting to The Queen
In November 1947, Lady Pamela acted as a bridesmaid to then-Princess Elizabeth at her 1947 wedding to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (her first cousin).[1] As lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth she was with her and the Duke of Edinburgh in Kenya when King George VI died on 6 February 1952.[1] In late 1953 and early 1954, she accompanied the Queen as lady-in-waiting on the royal tour to Jamaica, Panama, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, Aden, Libya, Malta and Gibraltar.[1]
Marriage and children
Lady Pamela is the widow of interior decorator and designer David Nightingale Hicks (25 March 1929 – 29 March 1998), son of Herbert Hicks and Iris Elsie Platten. They were married on 13 January 1960 at Romsey Abbey in Hampshire. The bridesmaids were Princess Anne, Princess Clarissa of Hesse (daughter of Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark), Lady Amanda Knatchbull, Victoria Marten (god-daughter of the bride), and the Hon. Joanna Knatchbull (daughter of the bride's sister Patricia).[2] Upon returning from honeymoon in the West Indies and New York she learned the death of her mother in February 1960.[3]
Together, the couple had three children:[4]
- Edwina Victoria Louise Hicks (born 24 December 1961)
- Ashley Louis David Hicks (born 18 July 1963)
- India Amanda Caroline Hicks (born 5 September 1967)
Later life
Lady Pamela has been a Director of H Securities Unlimited, a fund management and brokerage firm, since 1991. She is a former director of Cottesmore Farms. In 2002, Lady Pamela sold off her late mother's tiara at Sotheby's.[5] In 2007, Lady Pamela published her memoirs of her days in New Delhi and Simla, when India was partitioned into India and Pakistan and the Union Jack came down. She writes in the book India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power that, while her mother, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, and Jawaharlal Nehru, the future Prime Minister of India, were deeply in love, "the relationship remained platonic".[6][7] In 2012, Lady Pamela published the second volume of her memoirs titled "Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten", chronicling her childhood, her time in India and her time as lady-in-waiting to The Queen.[1]
Gallery
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Pamela Mountbatten (3rd from right) at a reception in New Delhi in October 1947 -
Mohandas K. Gandhi with Pamela Mountbatten, 1947. -
Queen Elizabeth II and her Lady-in-Waiting Lady Pamela Mountbatten arrive at a Women's Reception at Brisbane City Hall, 1954.
Styles from birth
- Miss Pamela Mountbatten (1929–1945)
- The Hon. Pamela Mountbatten (1945–1948)
- Lady Pamela Mountbatten (1948–1960)
- Lady Pamela Hicks (1960-present)
Published works
- Mountbatten, Pamela; Hicks, India (foreword). India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power, Pavilion Books, 2007. ISBN 978-1-86205-759-3
- Hicks, Pamela. Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012. ISBN 978-0297864820
Ancestry
References
- ^ a b c d Murphy, Victoria (3 November 2012). "Revealed: Queen's lifelong friend on what happened night she found out her father king had died". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
- ^ "The wedding of David Hicks and Lady Pamela Mountbatten". National Portrait Gallery, London.
- ^ "Lady Mountbatten dies in sleep on visit to Borneo". The Sydney Morning Herald. London. AAP. 21 February 1960. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
- ^ Gibson, David (2 April 1998). "David Hicks, 69, Interior Design Star of the 60's, Is Dead". New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
- ^ Roy, Amid (16 November 2002). "Crown of Raj last family on sale - Lady Mountbatten's tiara to go under hammer at Sotheby's". The Telegraph. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
- ^ "Love triangle at the heart of the British handover". The Sunday Times. UK. 22 July 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
- ^ "Pamela Mountbatten on the Jawaharlal-Edwina relationship". The Hindu. India. 18 July 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
External links
Battenberg/Mountbatten family | ||
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Generations are numbered by their descent from Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia, Princess of Battenberg | ||
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*Not Mountbatten or Battenberg by birth. Adopted the surname Mountbatten from his maternal line on abandoning his patrilineal Greek and Danish princely titles. | ||