Catherine Murray Millar Masters (née Cromb, 23 November 1899 – 14 February 2011) was a British supercentenarian who became the last living person who was born in Scotland during the 19th century and the Victorian era.
She was born in Dundee, the daughter of David Lyall Cromb (1875–1961),[1] an editor of the local Courier newspaper.[2] The family moved to London in 1908 (or 1909[1]) where her father eventually changed his career path to liteary agent.[2] Masters married twice, had a son, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.[3]
She married John McInnes in 1921 in London,[2] who worked for a tea importing company,[4] but McInnes died in 1962, and their son died of cancer in 1968. Her marriage to her second husband, Albert Masters, lasted from 1972 to his death in 1993. Following this she lived with one of her grandsons before he emigrated to South Africa in 2006.
A complaint to Buckingham Palace in 2009 that she had received a birthday card with the same design for five consecutive years led to a 40 minute visit, and a reported apology,[5] from Prince William[3] at the Grange Care Centre in Stanford-in-the-Vale, Oxfordshire, where she lived from around 2006.[6]
At the end of her life, Masters was the oldest living person born in Scotland and the third oldest person in the United Kingdom.[3] She died from complications following an operation to insert a heart pacemaker, but was able to live with no nursing at all up to 10 days before her death.[7] She was survived by a 48-year old grandson and 2 great grand-daughters.