Rosalind Shand
Rosalind Maud Shand was the daughter of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe. She was the wife of army officer Major Bruce Shand and the mother of Queen Camilla.
Childhood
Rosalind Maud Cubitt was born at 16 Grosvenor Street, London, on 11 August 1921, the eldest of the three children born to Roland Calvert Cubitt and his wife Sonia Rosemary Cubitt. Her father was the son of Henry Cubitt, 2nd Baron Ashcombe, and became 3rd Baron Ashcombe after his death. Rosalind's mother Sonia was the youngest daughter of George Keppel and his wife, Alice Frederica Keppel.Rosalind had two younger siblings: Henry Cubitt, who succeeded his father as the 4th Baron Ashcombe, and Jeremy Cubitt, who died in 1958 at the age of 30.
Her family was the aristocratic and wealthy Cubitt family, which founded the Cubitt construction company. She was a goddaughter of Dame Margaret Greville and inherited some of her fortune.
Rosalind was named by the press as the 1939 'Debutante of the Year'. She had her debutante ball on 6 July 1939 at Holland House in Kensington, London. It was attended by more than a thousand guests including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and Noël Coward. The ball was the last such event held at the house before it was destroyed during the Second World War.
Marriage and children
Rosalind met her future husband Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand, son of English journalist Philip Morton Shand and his first wife Edith Marguerite Harrington, at the end of the Second World War. He later retired from the British Army after winning two Military Crosses and being a German prisoner of war. They married on 2 January 1946 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge in London. The couple bought a country house, The Laines in Plumpton, East Sussex, and also maintained another house in South Kensington.They had three children:
- Camilla Rosemary Shand, whose first marriage was to Andrew Parker Bowles and had two children, in 2005 she went on to marry Charles, Prince of Wales :
- *Thomas Henry Charles Parker Bowles
- *Laura Rose Lopes née Parker Bowles
- Sonia Annabel Shand married Simon Elliot and had three children:
- *Benjamin William Elliot
- *Alice Rosalind Irwin née Elliot
- *Katie Camilla Elliot
- Mark Roland Shand married Clio Goldsmith and had a child:
- *Ayesha Shand
Career and charity work
Rosalind worked for an adoption agency before marriage. She volunteered at the Chailey Heritage Foundation, which helps young children with disabilities, in the 1960s and 1970s located at North Chailey, East Sussex. She worked there as a volunteer for 17 years. Her daughter Camilla opened a new facility there in 2013.Death
She died at Lewes, East Sussex on 14 July 1994 aged 72, having long suffered from osteoporosis. Her mother Sonia also died from the same disease in 1986. She was survived by her husband, her three children and five grandchildren. Her youngest granddaughter, Ayesha, was born a year after her death.Following her mother's death, Camilla became a member of the National Osteoporosis Society, which later became Royal Osteoporosis Society in 1994 to help raise awareness of the disease, became Patron of the charity in 1997 and was appointed its president in 2001.