Mary of Teck

Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 6 May 1910 until 20 January 1936 as the wife of King George V.

Born in Kensington and raised in Belgravia, Mary was the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, an Austrian-born nobleman, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. She was informally known as "May", after the month of her birth. At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, who was second in line to the throne. Six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during a pandemic. The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor's only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.

As queen consort from 1910, Mary supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George's death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne. To her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, George VI, until his death in 1952. Mary died the following year, ten weeks before her granddaughter Elizabeth II was crowned.