Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg

Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg GBE, DStJ (died 24 September 1973) was a British peeress.

Born as Barbara Jekyll, she was a daughter of Colonel Sir Herbert Jekyll (KCMG). On 20 July 1911, she married Hon. Francis Walter Stafford McLaren, the-then Liberal MP for Spalding and the second son of the 1st Baron Aberconway.

Francis and Barbara McLaren had two sons: Martin John McLaren (1914–1979) and Guy Lewis Ian McLaren (1915–1978). Francis McLaren was killed in action in 1917.

On 14 June 1922, she remarried, to Bernard Cyril Freyberg (later Baron Freyberg) at St. Martha-on-the-Hill, near Guildford, Surrey. They had one son, Paul Freyberg, 2nd Baron Freyberg (27 May 1923–26 May 1993).

WWII

During World War II, she was a welfare worker in Cairo, was mentioned in despatches and awarded an OBE in 1943. When her husband's term as Governor-General of New Zealand ended in 1952, Lady Freyberg was awarded the GBE in 1953.

Death

She died in 1973, and was interred in the churchyard of Saint Martha on the Hill in Guildford, Surrey, alongside her second husband, with their son, who had been awarded the Military Cross, at the end of their graves.

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