Mary of Teck | |||||
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Formal portrait from the 1920s
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Queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions; Empress consort of India |
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Tenure | 6 May 1910 – 20 January 1936 | ||||
Coronation | 22 June 1911 | ||||
Imperial Durbar | 12 December 1911 | ||||
Born |
Kensington Palace, London |
26 May 1867||||
Died | 24 March 1953 Marlborough House, London |
(aged 85)||||
Burial | 31 March 1953 St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle |
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Spouse | George V (m. 1893; d. 1936) | ||||
Issue | |||||
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House | Teck / Cambridge | ||||
Father | Francis, Duke of Teck | ||||
Mother | Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge |
Full name | |
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Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes |
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Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress of India as the wife of King-Emperor George V.
Although technically a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, she was born and raised in England. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck, who was of German extraction, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, who was a granddaughter of King George III. She was informally known as "May", after her birth month. At the age of 24, she was betrothed to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly of pneumonia. The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor's next surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.
As queen consort from 1910, she supported her husband through World War I, his ill health and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war, and the rise of socialism and nationalism. After George's death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward, ascended the throne, but to her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, Albert, who succeeded to the throne as George VI, until his death in 1952. She died the following year, during the reign of her granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II, who had not yet been crowned.