Elizabeth Douglas-Home, Baroness Home of the Hirsel

Elizabeth Hester Douglas-Home, Baroness Home of the Hirsel (nee Alington; 6 November 1909 – 3 September 1990^[1]) was the wife of the British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

She was born in 1909, the third daughter of the Very Revd Cyril Alington, the headmaster of Eton College and chaplain to King George V, and his wife, Hon. Hester Margaret Lyttelton (CBE), daughter of George, 4th Lord Lyttelton. Lady Home was the first woman to become a fellow (governor) of Eton.

She married Alec Douglas-Home in 1936.

Thanks to her husband acquiring and renouncing various titles she had, according to The Guinness Book of Records (1974–90), more names successively in her lifetime than any other once-married only British woman.

Her names in order were:

• Miss Elizabeth Alington (1909 to 1936)
• Lady Dunglass (her husband's courtesy title; 1936 to 1951)
• The Rt Hon The Countess of Home (1951 to 1963)
• Lady Douglas-Home (as the wife of a knight; 1963 to 1974)
• The Rt Hon The Lady Home of the Hirsel (her husband having been given a life peerage; 1974 to 1990)

She died in September 1990 at the age of 80, her husband outliving her by just over five years. They had been married for 54 years.^[2]

She avoided the limelight in life, but by a curious coincidence her memorial service occurred in November 1990 at the height of the crisis which led to the resignation of Margaret Thatcher when she and all connected with her were holed up in 10 Downing Street – and her husband Denis Thatcher broke cover by going to the service.

References

Bibliography

• Cherie Booth & Cate Haste. (2004). The Goldfish Bowl: Married to the Prime Minister 1955-1997.
• The Guinness Book of Records. 1985.