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Maureen Dunbar


Dame Maureen "Daisy" Helen Dunbar, 8th Baronetess, or more commonly known as Dame Maureen Dunbar (née Moore; 19 August 1906 – 14 February 1997), was the only daughter of Courtenay Edward Moore (1870–1951) and Janie King Askins Moore (1873–1951). The baronetcy passed to her through her predeceased father's line in 1963, making her one of only four baronetesses in British history. Her brother, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898–1918), had been killed in action in 1918.

Born Maureen Daisy Helen Moore in Ireland, she lived with her mother and C.S. Lewis (who had a 33-year cohabitation with Maureen's mother, Janie King Moore (née Askins)) for 22 years, until 1940, when she married Leonard James Blake (died 1989). She and her mother had started living with Lewis in late 1918 or early 1919, when she was a 13-year-old schoolgirl and Lewis was a 19 or 20-year-old university student. Lewis’s brother, Warren Lewis, joined the household in 1930. Janie Moore was married, though separated from her husband Courtenay, and remained in that state until her death in 1951, the same year her husband died.

Towards the end of her mother's life, Maureen would sometimes trade houses with Lewis, helping him take care of her mother, who died in 1951. Dame Maureen had a son, Richard Francis Dunbar of Hempriggs (born Richard Francis Blake on 8 January 1945), so the baronetcy returned on her death in 1997 to the male line.

She succeeded to the Scottish baronetcy in the most roundabout of ways possible. Garden Duff-Dunbar of Hempriggs had predeceased his father, leaving two young sons, George, afterwards Sir George Duff-Sutherland-Dunbar, 6th Baronet, and Lt. Cdr. Kenneth Duff-Dunbar, who died in World War I and whose only son, Capt. Kenneth Duff-Dunbar, died in World War II. The widow of Garden Duff-Dunbar, Louise Duff-Dunbar, died just after World War II. Her eldest son, Sir George, succeeded as 6th Baronet on his grandfather’s death in 1897, but took no part in the administration of the estates, spending most of his life in India as an administrator, where he became well known as one of the country’s greatest historians.

On his death, his only son, George, who had been a barrister in London for some years, succeeded as 7th Baronet. He died comparatively young and unmarried, in 1963. His first cousin and heir Capt. Kenneth Duff-Dunbar had fallen in World War II and in terms of the remainder, his second cousin, Maureen, great granddaughter of Capt. Benjamin Duff, by the only one of his daughters to leave issue, succeeded to the honours and estates and became 8th Baronetess of Hempriggs.


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