Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma

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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, in 1946 as The Hon. Patricia Mountbatten, and between 1946 and 1979 as The Baroness 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.

1 Marriage and children
2 Activities
3 Titles and honours
4 External links

[edit] 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 Clare Owen (b. 12 November 1960) in 1985 and had one daughter; divorced in 1997. Married Susan Penelope Jane Coates (b. 3 October 1959) in 1999 and had one daughter.
Lady Joanna Edwina Doreen Knatchbull (b. 5 March 1955), married Baron Hubert Pernot du Breuil (2 February 1956-6 September 2004) in 1984 and had one daughter; divorced in 1995; married Azriel Zuckerman (b. 18 January 1943) in 1995 and had one son.
Lady Amanda Patricia Victoria Knatchbull (b. 26 June 1957), married Charles Vincent Ellingworth (b. 7 February 1957) in 1987 and had three sons.
The Hon. Philip Wyndham Ashley Knatchbull (b. 2 December 1961), married Atalanta Cowan (b. 20 June 1962) in 1991 and had one daughter; married Wendy Amanda Leach (b. 20 July 1966) in 2002 and had two sons.
The Hon. Timothy Nicholas Sean Knatchbull (b. 18 November 1964), married Isabella Norman (b. 9 January 1971), a great-great-granddaughter of the 4th Earl of Bradford, in 1998 and had two sons and two daughters.
The Hon. Nicholas Timothy Charles Knatchbull (18 November 1964–August 27, 1979), killed, aged 14, by an IRA bomb.

[edit] Activities

Lady Mountbatten of Burma 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 UK 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; the Order of St. John, of which she is a Dame; and the Countess Mountbatten's Own Legion of Frontiersmen of the Commonwealth, of which she is Patron.

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 Brabourne 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.

[edit] Titles and honours

[edit] Shorthand titles

Miss Patricia Mountbatten (1924 - 1946)
The Hon. Patricia Mountbatten (1946 - 1946)
The Rt Hon. The Lady Brabourne (1946 - 1979)
The Rt Hon. 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 of Burma 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 Hon. 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).