Her Excellency The Right Honourable
The Countess of Minto
CI DStJ
Viceregal-Consort of India
In office
18 November 1905 – 23 November 1910
MonarchsEdward VII
George V
Governor-GeneralThe Earl of Minto
Preceded byThe Lady Curzon of Kedleston
Succeeded byThe Lady Hardinge of Penshurst
Personal details
Born(1868-11-13)13 November 1868
Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England[1]
Died14 July 1940(1940-07-14) (aged 71)
London, England
Resting placeMinto, Scottish Borders
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1883)​
Children5, including Victor
Parent(s)Hon. Charles Grey
Caroline Farquhar

Mary Caroline Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Countess of Minto CI, DStJ (née Grey; 13 November 1858 – 14 July 1940) was a British aristocrat, Vicereine of India, and courtier to Queen Mary. She was a prominent healthcare campaigner in Canada and India, respectively.

Early life and family

She was born Mary Caroline Grey on 13 November 1858, the youngest of five children of General Charles Grey, courtier to Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, and his wife, Caroline, née Farquhar. She was a granddaughter of Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. She was raised at the Court of St James’s in Windsor and St James’s Palace, London.[1] Her brother was Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey.

On 28 July 1883, she married Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, becoming countess of Minto when her husband succeeded to his father’s title in 1891. They had five children: Eileen, Ruby, Violet, Victor and Gavin.[2]  

Healthcare initiatives in Canada and India

Lady Minto and her five children dressed for winter in Ottawa, 1901

In 1898, Lady Minto’s husband was appointed governor-general of Canada. Her projects during their six-year stay in Canada included instituting a Queen Victoria memorial fund to raise money for rural cottage hospitals with the Victorian Order of Nurses. Several hospitals were founded in her name, including the Lady Minto Hospital in Ontario and the Lady Minto wing at the Ottawa Maternity Hospital.[1]  

The Mintos were appointed viceroy and vicereine of India from 1905–1910. She became involved with the Countess of Dufferin Fund for the improvement of women’s healthcare, using her connections to secure government funding for it, and launched the Lady Minto Indian Nursing Association, which built on the work of Mary Curzon.[3][4] As part of a two-week fête that she held in 1907 to fundraise for the Association, she launched a set of three postage stamps depicting herself and her husband.[5]

Lady Minto, as Vicereine of India

Later life

On her return to England, Lady Minto was appointed lady of the bedchamber to Queen Mary, and continued her involvement in healthcare programmes, serving on the board of the Territorial Army Nursing Service. In 1934 she used her journals and her husband’s correspondence as the basis for her book, India, Minto and Morley, and she also contributed to Margot Asquith’s Myself When Young and to John Buchan's biography of her husband.[2][6]

Predeceased by her husband and two of her children, including the death of her son Gavin in the First World War, she died at her home at Hambleton, Godalming, on 14 July 1940.[2]

Lady Minto was a hockey fan and a keen figure-skater, co-founding the Minto Skating Club with her husband in Ottawa in 1903/4.[1][7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Biography – GREY, MARY CAROLINE (Elliot, Viscountess MELGUND and Countess of MINTO) – Volume XVI (1931-1940) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". www.biographi.ca. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "Kynynmound [née Grey], Mary Caroline Elliot-Murray-, countess of Minto (1858–1940), courtier, vicereine, and nursing association and hospital founder". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-369131?rskey=e1mvqb&result=1. Retrieved 26 December 2023.
  3. ↑ Sehrawat, Samiksha (1 October 2013). Colonial Medical Care in North India. Oxford University Press. pp. 120, 149. ISBN 978-0-19-809660-3.
  4. ↑ Thomas, N. (2001). Negotiating the boundaries of gender and empire : Lady Curzon, Vicereine of India, 1898-1905 (Thesis). University of Oxford.
  5. ↑ "Lady Minto's Fete". Stamps Magazine. February 1985.
  6. ↑ Buchan, John (1924). Lord Minto: a Memoir. pp. iii.
  7. ↑ General, Office of the Secretary to the Governor (3 March 2017). "The Earl of Minto". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
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