Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma
Patricia Edwina Victoria Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, CBE, CD, JP, DL (born 14 February 1924) is a British peeress and daughter of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and his wife Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma. She is the sister of Lady Pamela Hicks.
Known before 1946 as Patricia Mountbatten, and between 1946 and 1979 as The Lady Brabourne, Lady Mountbatten of Burma succeeded her father, the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, when he was assassinated in 1979, as his peerages had been created with special remainder to his daughters and their heirs male. This inheritance put her in the House of Lords, where she remained until 1999, when the House of Lords Act 1999 removed most hereditary peers from the House.
Marriage and children
On 26 October 1946 she married John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne (9 November 1924–23 September 2005), at the time an aide to her father in the Far East. They had seven children:
- Norton Louis Philip Knatchbull, 8th Baron Brabourne (b. 8 October 1947), married Penelope Eastwood and had issue.
- The Hon. Michael-John Ulick Knatchbull (b. 24 May 1950), married Melissa Owen and had issue.
- Lady Joanna Edwina Doreen Knatchbull (b. 5 March 1955), married Baron Hubert du Breuil and had issue, married Azriel Zuckerman and had issue.
- Lady Amanda Patricia Victoria Knatchbull (b. 26 June 1957), married Charles Ellingworth.
- The Hon. Philip Wyndham Ashley Knatchbull (b. 2 December 1961), married Atalanta Cowan and had issue; married Wendy Leach and had issue.
- The Hon. Timothy Nicholas Sean Knatchbull (b. 18 November 1964), married Isabella Norman, a great-great-granddaughter of the 4th Earl of Bradford and had issue.
- The Hon. Nicholas Timothy Charles Knatchbull (18 November 1964–August 27, 1979), killed, aged 14, by an IRA bomb.
Activities
Lady Mountbatten was educated in Malta, England and New York. In 1943 at age 19, she entered the Women's Royal Naval Service as a Signal Rating and served in Combined Operations bases in the U.K. until being commissioned as a third officer in 1945 and serving in the Supreme Allied Headquarters, South East Asia. This is where she met Lord Brabourne, who was an aide to her father. In 1973 was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Kent; she is also a serving magistrate and is involved with numerous service organisations including SOS Children's Villages UK, of which she is Patron and the Order of St. John, of which she is a Dame.
On 15 June 1974 she succeeded her cousin Lady Patricia Ramsay, formerly HRH Princess Patricia of Connaught, as Colonel-in-Chief of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, for whom the regiment was named when Princess Patricia's father the Duke of Connaught was Governor General of Canada during the First World War. Despite her succeeding to an earldom in her own right as Countess Mountbatten of Burma on the death of her father in 1979, she prefers that the officers and men of her regiment address her as Lady Patricia.
Lady Mountbatten was in the boat which was blown up by the IRA off the shores of Sligo in 1979, killing her son Nicholas; her father; her mother-in-law, the Dowager Baroness Brabourne; and a local boy, Paul Maxwell, from County Fermanagh. She, her husband, and their son Timothy were injured but survived the attack.
Titles and honours
Shorthand titles
- Miss Patricia Mountbatten (1924 - 1946)
- The Honourable Patricia Mountbatten (1946 - 1946)
- The Right Honourable The Lady Brabourne (1946 - 1947)
- The Right Honourable The Lady Brabourne (1947 - 1979)
- The Right Honourable The Countess Mountbatten of Burma (1979 - present)
A peer's daughter drops in rank and precedence when she marries a peer of significantly lower rank, with rare exceptions (such as inheritance of a title in her own right, or Letters Patent entitling her to a higher rank). Lady Mountbatten was born the daughter of a younger son of a Marquess and thus had no courtesy title. She became the daughter of a Viscount (when her father was so created), and was thus known as The Honourable Patricia Mountbatten. When she married a baron, she assumed the style, rank, and precedence of a baron's wife (baroness) which was higher than that of a viscount's daughter. However, when her father was raised to an earldom, this had no effect on her rank and precedence until he died and she succeeded him by special remainder. By contrast, her younger sister rose to the style, rank, and precedence of an earl's daughter and this was not affected by her marriage to a commoner (someone not a peer).