Mary Anna Marten

Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Marten, OBE (1929–2010) was born Mary Anna Sibell Elizabeth Sturt on 12 September 1929 at Moor Critchel, the daughter of Napier Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington and Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper, daughter of the 9th Earl of Shaftesbury, sometime Lord Steward to the Household of George V & Queen Mary, by his wife Lady Constance Sibell Grosvenor (d 1957), a great friend of Queen Mary, dau of Earl Grosvenor, and sister of Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster. She was god-daughter to Queen Elizabeth (later The Queen Mother), and in 1953 her son Napier was a page at the Coronation of Elizabeth II.

After joining the Brownies alongside Princess Margaret, Mary Anna went to school in Lancaster Gate and later attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. Upon the death of her father, Baron Alington in active service in the RAF in 1940, Mary Anna inherited the Crichel House Estate in Dorset.

Part of the Estate had been compulsorily purchased by the Government in 1938, and the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill later gave an undertaking that when the Government no longer needed the land for the purpose for which it had been requisitioned, the land would be sold back to the original owners. When this did not happen, Mary Anna and her husband took on the Government, and eventually won back their land, following the resignation over the issue by the relevant Minister. The episode became known as The Crichel Down affair, a term still used in British legislation. The estate was sold after her death. Mary Anna and her husband, Lt.-Cdr. George (Toby) Gosselin Marten, L.V.O. D.S.C., Royal Navy, (1918 - 1997), son of Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Arthur Marten, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G., C.V.O., were married on 25 November 1949 at Holy Trinity Brompton. He was an equerry to George VI, and the marriage was attended by George VI, Queen Elizabeth (Mary Anna's godmother), Princess Margaret, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Kent, the Earl and Countess of Athlone.

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