Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg

Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg, GBE, DStJ was a British peeress.

Family

Born as Barbara Jekyll, she was a daughter of Colonel Sir Herbert Jekyll, KCMG and his wife, Dame Agnes Graham Jekyll, DBE. On 20 July 1911, she married Hon. Francis Walter Stafford McLaren, the-then Liberal MP for Spalding and the second son of the 1st Baron Aberconway. They had two sons, Major Martin John McLaren and Guy Lewis Ian McLaren. Francis, a Royal Flying Corps officer, was killed in a flying accident 1917. As a result, and out of a desire to retain her connection with the town, Barbara was instrumental in the construction of Spalding War Memorial. She commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens through her aunt, Gertrude Jekyll—a friend and collaborator of Lutyens. She donated £1,000 towards the cost of the memorial and attended the unveiling ceremony on 9 June 1922.
On 14 June 1922 Barbara married her second husband, Bernard Cyril Freyberg, at St. Martha-on-the-Hill, near Guildford, Surrey. They had one son: Paul Richard Freyberg, 2nd Baron Freyberg.

WWII

During World War II, she was a welfare worker in Cairo, was mentioned in dispatches and awarded an OBE in 1943. When her husband's term as Governor-General of New Zealand ended in 1952, Lady Freyberg was awarded the GBE in the 1953 New Year Honours.

Death

She died in 1973 at 65 Chelsea Square, London SW3. She was interred in the churchyard of Saint Martha on the Hill in Guildford, Surrey, alongside her second husband.