her love of foreign travel and would ultimately lead her to her husband.
Sadly, later that year, on 24 August 1976, her grandfather Thomas – Dorothy’s carpenter father – died of pancreatic cancer at home in North Road, Southall. It was a tremendous loss for the family, who were deeply indebted to him. It was he who had broken with family tradition, learning a trade instead of going down the mines, and moving the family down south. He had lived under five monarchs and survived two world wars, and that wealth of experience was now lost to the family for good.
Dorothy was 41 years old when her father succumbed to cancer. Within four years, her daughter’s wedding – to a middle-class British Airways flight dispatcher called Michael Middleton – would finally fulfil Dorothy’s dreams of prosperity and respectability, cement the family’s precarious social status and lead to the birth of a royal bride. Over the previous decades, there had been hard times and moments of triumph. yet, looking at Kate now, it is hard to believe that just 50 years ago her grandmother was struggling to make ends meet in a condemned flat on the outskirts of London.
Chapter 6
The Middletons 1838–1914
S tanding on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in the dwindling hours of the balmy evening of 28 June 1838, Queen Victoria watched the fireworks in Green Park and reflected on her day. She had been woken at 4 a.m. by the sounds of guns in the park, crowds gathering, soldiers marching and bands setting up in anticipation of her long-awaited coronation at Westminster Abbey, which was greeted by deafening cheers from the crowds.
Wearing an 8-ft velvet and ermine train and holding an orb in her left hand and a sceptre in her right, she walked regally out of the abbey at 4.30 p.m., having been crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for the procession back to the palace. ‘I really cannot say how proud I feel to be the Queen of such a nation,’ the 19-year-old monarch wrote in her diary afterwards. ‘The enthusiasm, affection and loyalty were really touching. I shall ever remember this day as the proudest day of my life.’
Two hundred miles north of the palace, in the industrial town of Leeds, Kate’s great-great-great-grandfather William Middleton, a solicitor, probably read about the coronation in the local newspaper while having breakfast with his new wife, Mary. The couple had been married for four months and had set up home in a terraced house on the outskirts of the town, where they brought up their large family. On Coronation Day, Mary was already pregnant with their eldest son, Kate’s great-great-grandfather John, although it is unlikely that she would have known yet that she was with child. Her son would grow up in very different surroundings from the Harrisons and the Goldsmiths.
Unlike Kate’s other ancestors, William, the 30-year-old son of a joiner and cabinetmaker from Wakefield, a small town 15 miles south of Leeds, was educated and trained in a profession. He had moved to the larger town after qualifying as a solicitor and was now wealthy enough to provide for a family.
It was in Leeds that he had met and fallen in love with 27-year-old Mary Ward. William would have been considered her social better – she was the daughter of a milliner who lived on Briggate, the town’s main thoroughfare, running from the newly opened Corn Exchange to the River Aire – but she was a young woman who seems to have been determined to make something of herself.
In those days, Leeds was a thriving town. It had flourished from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and workers poured into the factories, mills and workshops. Coal was brought into the town centre by steam trains from Middleton Colliery and the streets were lit with gas lamps. There was a courthouse, a prison and a bank. But behind the elegant timber-fronted façade of Briggate, which was one of the oldest streets in Leeds, home to rich
Sadly, later that year, on 24 August 1976, her grandfather Thomas – Dorothy’s carpenter father – died of pancreatic cancer at home in North Road, Southall. It was a tremendous loss for the family, who were deeply indebted to him. It was he who had broken with family tradition, learning a trade instead of going down the mines, and moving the family down south. He had lived under five monarchs and survived two world wars, and that wealth of experience was now lost to the family for good.
Dorothy was 41 years old when her father succumbed to cancer. Within four years, her daughter’s wedding – to a middle-class British Airways flight dispatcher called Michael Middleton – would finally fulfil Dorothy’s dreams of prosperity and respectability, cement the family’s precarious social status and lead to the birth of a royal bride. Over the previous decades, there had been hard times and moments of triumph. yet, looking at Kate now, it is hard to believe that just 50 years ago her grandmother was struggling to make ends meet in a condemned flat on the outskirts of London.
Chapter 6
The Middletons 1838–1914
S tanding on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in the dwindling hours of the balmy evening of 28 June 1838, Queen Victoria watched the fireworks in Green Park and reflected on her day. She had been woken at 4 a.m. by the sounds of guns in the park, crowds gathering, soldiers marching and bands setting up in anticipation of her long-awaited coronation at Westminster Abbey, which was greeted by deafening cheers from the crowds.
Wearing an 8-ft velvet and ermine train and holding an orb in her left hand and a sceptre in her right, she walked regally out of the abbey at 4.30 p.m., having been crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for the procession back to the palace. ‘I really cannot say how proud I feel to be the Queen of such a nation,’ the 19-year-old monarch wrote in her diary afterwards. ‘The enthusiasm, affection and loyalty were really touching. I shall ever remember this day as the proudest day of my life.’
Two hundred miles north of the palace, in the industrial town of Leeds, Kate’s great-great-great-grandfather William Middleton, a solicitor, probably read about the coronation in the local newspaper while having breakfast with his new wife, Mary. The couple had been married for four months and had set up home in a terraced house on the outskirts of the town, where they brought up their large family. On Coronation Day, Mary was already pregnant with their eldest son, Kate’s great-great-grandfather John, although it is unlikely that she would have known yet that she was with child. Her son would grow up in very different surroundings from the Harrisons and the Goldsmiths.
Unlike Kate’s other ancestors, William, the 30-year-old son of a joiner and cabinetmaker from Wakefield, a small town 15 miles south of Leeds, was educated and trained in a profession. He had moved to the larger town after qualifying as a solicitor and was now wealthy enough to provide for a family.
It was in Leeds that he had met and fallen in love with 27-year-old Mary Ward. William would have been considered her social better – she was the daughter of a milliner who lived on Briggate, the town’s main thoroughfare, running from the newly opened Corn Exchange to the River Aire – but she was a young woman who seems to have been determined to make something of herself.
In those days, Leeds was a thriving town. It had flourished from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and workers poured into the factories, mills and workshops. Coal was brought into the town centre by steam trains from Middleton Colliery and the streets were lit with gas lamps. There was a courthouse, a prison and a bank. But behind the elegant timber-fronted façade of Briggate, which was one of the oldest streets in Leeds, home to rich
Similar Books
