Lady Helen Cynthia Colville, née Crewe-Milnes, DCVO, DBE (20 May 1884 – 15 June 1968) was both a courtier and social worker, serving as a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary, while at the same time devoting her energies to alleviating the suffering of Shoreditch, one of the poorest areas of the East End of London.
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Helen Cynthia was the third daughter of Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe[1] by his first wife, the former Sibyl Graham, daughter of Sir Frederick Graham (of the Graham Baronets of Netherby) and Lady Jane St Maur.
Her mother died young. Cynthia and her siblings then lived for a time with their unmarried uncle Hungerford Crewe, 3rd Baron Crewe, rejoining their father, a Liberal politician, when he was posted to Dublin as Gladstone's lord lieutenant of Ireland (1892–1895). Her father re-married, choosing Margaret (Peggy) Primrose, daughter of Lord Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister in 1894-1895, and his wife Hannah, heiress to the Rothschild fortune. Cynthia's stepmother was only three years older than her. Her half-sister is Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe.
Her mother's siblings, Cynthia's uncles and aunts, included Violet Hermione, who married Douglas Graham, 5th Duke of Montrose; Margaret Frances, who married as her second husband James Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam; and Hilda Georgina, who married Tory politician George Faber, 1st Baron Wittenham.
Helen Cynthia married the Hon. George Charles Colville, younger son of the 1st Viscount Colville of Culross and the Hon. Cecile Carrington, on 21 January 1908. Their children were:
She started her work in Shoreditch, which her son describes as a "socially derelict square mile", before World War I. One of her areas of concern was infant mortality, so she ran an infant welfare centre. The borough council, which was socialist, co-opted her to their public health committee. She befriended burglars as well as fallen women, and was a friend to all.[2] In 1952 she was appointed a lay justice at Bow Street Magistrates' Court.[3] Her step-mother had been one of the first female magistrates in Britain.[4]
She was considered revolutionary for introducing a self-made man like Thomas Benjamin Frederick Davis to high society, persuading the queen to invite him to dinner on the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III during the Cowes Week regatta[5] She was herself an enthusiastic sailor.
In 1948 Shoreditch Council renamed a housing estate on Felton Street estate as "the Colville estate" in honour of her long association.
In 1963 she published her autobiography, Crowded Life.
She died on 15 June 1968, aged 84, at 4 Mulberry Walk, Chelsea, London, England.