The New Year is off to a sad start for the Queen, with the news that her maternal first cousin, Lady Mary Colman, has died at 88. Lady Mary passed away on 2 January at Bixley Manor, her Norfolk home which she shared with her husband, Sir Timothy Colman.
Born Mary Bowes-Lyon, Lady Mary was the daughter of Captain Michael Bowes-Lyon (one of the Queen Mother’s nine siblings) and his wife, Elizabeth Margaret Cator. One of four children, her eldest brother was Fergus Michael Bowes-Lyon, the 17th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She also had a younger brother, the Honourable Michael Albemarle Bowes-Lyon, and twin sister, Lady Patricia Bowes-Lyon (later Tetley).
Lady Mary was born in January 1932 at the family home of Gastlings in Bedfordshire, before attending Hatherop Castle school in Gloucestershire as a child. She married Sir Timothy Colman (of the Colman Mustard family), son of English cricketer Geoffrey Colman and his wife, Lettice (née Adeane), on 10 November 1951. Lady Mary was just 19 at the time, and the event at St Bartholomew-the-Great church in East London was quite the society wedding, with the Queen, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret all in attendance.
Lady Mary and Sir Timothy spent their early married life in Dorset, while Sir Timothy served in the Royal Navy at Portland. He went on to become Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, served as chairman of the Eastern Counties Newspaper Group from 1969 to 1996 and was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1996. Sir Timothy was also one of the founders of the University of East Anglia and a keen sailor, who held the World Speed Sailing Record for seven years.
The couple had five children, Sarah, Sabrina, Emma, James and Matthew. Their eldest daughter, Sarah Troughton, is the current Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire – the first woman to hold the position since it was created in the 16th century. Lady Mary and Sir Timothy now have 10 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Thanks to her ties to the Royal Family, Lady Mary was appointed as Extra Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Alexandra, another of the Queen’s cousins, in 1970. Just six years younger than the Queen, Lady Mary and Sir Timothy were frequent guests at Balmoral and Sandringham through the years.
An accomplished philanthropist, Lady Mary served as president of the Eastern Daily Press We Care 2000 Appeal; an initiative launched in October 1998 ‘to establish an enduring charitable trust giving financial and practical help to unpaid carers in their crucial and often undervalued roles.’ The project led to the foundation of the Norfolk Millennium Trust for Carers, which carries out vital work to this day, helping carers across the county.
Lady Mary spoke admiringly of those who served as carers, with Norwich Evening News reporting that she said at the time: ‘I have agreed to become president of the appeal because I firmly believe that carers of all ages – and many are quite small children – need and deserve all the help we can give them. There are times when the sense of responsibility, loneliness, frustration or sheer exhaustion makes their task almost too much to cope with.’ She also put her efforts behind a number of other local charities, including the Red Cross, and served as president of the Norfolk Autistic Society for 26 years, until she retired from the role in 2001.
Norwich Evening News reports that her family said Lady Mary was a talented musician, who played the piano by ear, sang well and served as patron and an active member of the Barton Turf Choral Society. A lover of nature, for a number of years Lady Mary ran a dried flower business, Flora Desicca, with three friends. Like her cousin the Queen, she also had a fondness for dogs and kept a number of Jack Russell Terriers as pets during her adult life. She was a passionate supporter of Norwich City Football Club and enjoyed watching The Canaries play at their home games for some 30 years. She also loved visiting Norwich Cathedral and those that worked there, such as the bishops, deans and organists.
Her family are quoted as stating that Lady Mary was ‘hugely supportive’ of her husband, Sir Timothy, in both his business life and in their shared affection for their large family. They added that she was ‘loved by all who met her’.
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