Mary Louise Hamilton, Duchess of Montrose

Mary Louise Hamilton, Duchess of Montrose (1 November 1884 – 21 February 1957) was a Scottish noblewoman, the only daughter of William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton and Lady Mary Louise Montagu. By marriage to James Graham, 6th Duke of Montrose, she was Duchess of Montrose.

Lady Mary Louise Hamilton was born on 1 November 1884 in London, the only daughter of William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton and Lady Mary Louise Montagu. Both of her parents were of German descent on one side through their mother: William Douglas-Hamilton's mother was Princess Marie Amelie of Baden and Lady Mary Louise Montagu's mother was Countess Luise von Alten of Kingdom of Hanover.^[2][3][4]

Through her father, Lady Mary Louise Hamilton had relations with many European royal families. Her first cousins once removed included Carol I of Romania, Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Queen of Portugal (Carol I and Stephanie were children of Princess Josephine of Baden) and Carola of Vasa, Queen of Saxony (daughter of Princess Louise Amelie of Baden). Moreover, Lady Mary was great-great granddaughter of Napoléon Bonaparte,^[a] Last but not least, Lady Mary's aunt, Lady Mary Victoria was firstly married to Albret I, Prince of Monaco and had a son with him, so Lady Mary Louise was first cousin of Louis II, Prince of Monaco.^[5][6]

Her father, William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton was an absent father when she was young. However, it was known that the Duke once gave his daughter, Lady Mary Louise a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which had the signature of the duke as a Christmas gift in 1890.^[4] On 16 May 1895, when Lady Mary was 10 years old, her father died. Although the title Duke of Hamilton was once held by the 1st Duke's daughter, Lady Anne Hamilton, she could not succeeded her father's titles by the third remainder, so all of her father's titles, as well as the Hamilton property and assets, which included £1 million in debts, went to the late Duke's fourth cousin, Alfred Douglas-Hamilton.^[7][4][8] However, the late duke had made special provisions for his daughter: Brodick Castle, the family estates on Arran and the Easton Park property in Suffolk were left in trust for Lady Mary.^[4]

Lady Mary Louise lived a quite, nearly isolated life with her mother, The Dowager Duchess of Hamilton. The Dowager Duchess was an over-protective mother to Lady Mary. Even when Lady Mary was taking dancing lessons, the Dowager Duchess refused to allow other children to attend the classes so chairs were used to represent the other couples. Just like her mother, Lady Mary was a skilful horsewoman and hunter, as she could hunted five to six days a weekand and was a good shot with both rifle and gun, later became an extremely knowledgeable gardener.^[4][9][10]

Arcording to The Sketch, Lady Mary Louise was called "Queen of Arran". She has an income of £30,000 a year which was a very handsome capital sum, and palatial homes, not only in Arran and Lanarkshire, but at Easton Park and Suffolk. Her beauty and charming disposition make her the idol of her people in Arran, where the greatest day in their previous history was for them that day on which she came of age. The island simply blazed with bonfires all the night, and every islander made as merry in his own sphere as did the thousand guests who danced in the dawn up at Brodick Castle.^[11]

On 14 June 1906, at St George's, Hanover Square, London, Lady Mary Louise married James Graham, Marquess of Graham. King Edward VII also attended the wedding, as well as various members of the aristocracy. The couple had four children:^{[4][12][13][3]}

• James Angus Graham, 7th Duke of Montrose (2 May 1907 – 10 February 1992); married firstly to Isabel Veronia Sellar on 20 October 1930 and had issue, then divorced in 1950; remarried to Susan Mary Joclyn Semple on 17 April 1952 and had issue.^[14]
• Lady Mary Helen Alma Graham (11 April 1909 – 7 February 1999); married firstly to Major John Perceval Townshend Boscawen on 21 April 1931 and had issue; married secondly to Brig Leslie Colville Dunn (d.1990) on 15 December 1975 and had no issue.
• Lord Ronald Malise Hamilton Graham (20 September 1912 – 11 June 1978); married to Nancy Edith Baker on 16 September 1938 and have no issue.
• Lady Jean Sibyl Violet Graham (7 November 1920 – 13 October 2017); married to Colonel John Patrick Ilbert Fforde CBE (b. 1910; d. 1993) on 8 Oct 1947 and had issue. She divorced him in 1957.

The family lived at Buchanan Castle, Stirlingshire, at Brodick Castle, Arran, and at Easton Park, Suffolk.^[12] Although having little in common, the couple had a very happy marriage life.^[15]

During World War I, while Marquess of Graham founded the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Marchioness of Gramham gave unstinting service in nursing.^[9] Easton Park, Marchioness of Graham's estate in Suffolk, was turned into a Red Cross Hospital with the Dowager Duchess of Hamilton acted as the Commander and Marchioness of Graham, trained to be a nurse, as Voluntary Aid Detachment. At the end of the First World War, she was a Theatre Sister in Bellahouston Hospital^[16][4] Later she came back to Brodick Castle and created a convalescent hospital in The White House in Lamlash. As a result, she had the chance to reunited with her children althourhg her work took her from them most of the time. She rode from the castle to Lamlash, winter and summer, on the pillion of a motor cycle, which was unusual to say the least, for a woman of that time.^[17][10]

On 10 December 1925, her husband succeeded his father as the new Duke of Montrose. As a result, she became the new Duchess.^[12] The new Duke and Duchess of Montrose sold Buchanan Castle, probably to cover the death duties of the late Duke, and then spent far more time on Arran. Some of the fixtures and fittings from Buchanan Castle were also removed and later installed at Brodick, including the elaborate oak fire surround in the exhibition room and the magnificent chandelier in the Drawing Room.^[4]

Bred for a different lifestyle, the Duke and Duchess of Montrose met the challenge of changing values with dignity and vision, and set an honourable example to their peers. They evoked admiration and respect in their work people, and at the time of the Great Depression the Duke reduced the rents on his estates to their pre-war level to alleviate hardship. Poorly counselled, their estates declined, but they remained 'beloved chieftains' until their passing.^[18] They were also essentially homely people. The duchess was a good artist, sculptor and musician: she had won a prize for drawing at the Loughborough School of Art, had cast three pieces in bronze and play piano and violin well. She was a keen and knowledgeable farmer, had one of the first farms in Arran to be tested and cleared of Tuberculosis. She was also an enthusiastic dog breeder, and at one time there were seventy dogs in the Brodick kennels. And above all she loved and was a skilled and knowledgeable gardener, and it was she who was responsible for creating at Brodick one of the finest rhododendron gardens in Europe.^[19][20][21]

Arcording to Lady Jean Graham, daughter of Duchess of Montrose, the Duchess was a tall woman with a height of 5 feet and 10 inches. Although the Duchess's family had problems with weight control, a feature which, according to Lady Jean, was passed down through Mary Louise's paternal grandmother, Princess Marie Amelie of Baden, the Duchess was a well-built woman, very fit with the most wonderful teeth like pearls and had only two stoppings in them when she was 70 years old. She also had a low resonant speaking voice and a good sense of humour.^[22]

Mary Louise was an old-fashioned woman: She thought of debutantes as girls wearing pale colour dresses with flower ornaments in their hair; she was against make up, colour nail vanish, and cigarettes.^[23] Not only a woman of duty and discipline, she was also kind, gentle and humorous and shy. Lady Jean, her daughter believed that her shyness, thanks to her mother was the reason that some of her quotes, which meant to be a joke, ended up being caustic remarks and often struck near the bone.^[24]

The Duchess of Montrose was noted as the one making most impact on the present gardens of Brodick Castle, which she inherited. She was fascinated with, and subscribed to, the plant-hunting expeditions of the 1920s undertaken by George Forrest, Joseph Rock and Frank Kingdon-Ward. Together with her son-in-law Major J.P.T. Boscawen and a team of gardeners, the duchess began to create a woodland garden. The combination of rain and relative mildness has allowed plants from Chile, Burma, the Himalayas and Tasmania to flourish and give this garden its lush, jungle-like feel. The woodland garden was her great joy, and was her greatest achievement and lasting memorial.^[25][19]

From her marriage till her own death, Mary Louise had made Brodick Castle become her private family home. The part of the house most closely associated with the Duchess is the suite of three rooms that leads off the landing at the head of the staircase: the dressing-room and bedroom on the west front, the boudoir overlooking the garden, and its associated boudoir landing. These rooms reflect an interesting blend of personal memories and choice items from the Beckford Collection paintings, porcelain and furniture. This was typical of the family life of the Montroses: their four children grew up surrounded by priceless treasures.^[26]

on 21 February 1957, Mary Louise died at Brodick Castle. Only her two daughter, Lady Mary and Jean and family of Lady Mary were present. Her son Angus was in hospital for an upcoming operation so he and his family could not show up and her other son Donald was in Jamaica.^[4][19][27] When her husband died of heart failure in 20 January 1954 at Buchanan Castle,^[12] Mary Louise realised that Brodick Castle and its estate could have no future as a family home because death duties would cripple it irredeemably. So after her own death, which happened on 21 February 1957, the castle, its garden and a considerable portion of her collection were accepted by the Treasury in lieu of death duties and transferred to the National Trust for Scotland in 1958.^[4][28]

Mary Louise was awarded the title Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1918.^[29]

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• Sarah Beattie (5 May 2021). "William Douglas-Hamilton (1845–95), 12th Duke of Hamilton". National Trust for Scotland.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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• The Sketch (1906). The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality. Ingram brothers.
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• Fry, Michael (23 September 2004). "Graham, James, sixth duke of Montrose". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: year (link) (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
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