Timothy Laurence


Sir Timothy James Hamilton Laurence is a British retired Royal Navy officer and husband of Anne, Princess Royal, the only sister of King Charles III.
Laurence served as equerry to Queen Elizabeth II from 1986 to 1989, before marrying her daughter, Princess Anne, in 1992.

Early life and education

Timothy James Hamilton Laurence was born on 1 March 1955 in Camberwell, South London, the younger son of Commander Guy Stewart Laurence , and Barbara Alison. He has an elder brother, Jonathan Dobree Laurence. The Laurences descend patrilineally from Zaccaria Levy, a Jewish merchant who arrived in England from Venice in the late 18th century, by his wife Simcha Ana née Montefiore. Their son Joseph changed the family name to Laurence.
Laurence attended The New Beacon Preparatory School and then Sevenoaks School, Kent, before going up to read Geography at University College, University of Durham, on a Naval Scholarship, graduating with an Upper-Second Class Bachelor of Science. As an undergraduate, Laurence edited the student newspaper, Palatinate.

Naval career

Laurence was commissioned into the Royal Navy as a midshipman on 1 January 1973, becoming an acting sub-lieutenant on 1 January 1975. Upon leaving Durham he completed his initial training at the Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, and was posted to, a Plymouth-based frigate. He was promoted lieutenant 10 months early, on 1 March 1977. In 1978, Laurence was attached to the training establishment and in the next year served on the Ton-class minesweeper HMS Pollington.
Laurence then served briefly as the Second Navigating Officer of the Royal Yacht HMY Britannia, and from 1980 to 1982 he was Navigating Officer of the destroyer. He took command of the patrol boat HMS Cygnet off the Northern Irish coast in 1982, deployed to patrol for IRA gunrunners. For distinguished service in Northern Ireland Laurence was mentioned in despatches.
After attending for the Principal Warfare Officer course he was posted to the frigate. Laurence was promoted lieutenant commander on 1 March 1985. He attended the Royal Australian Navy Tactics Course at HMAS Watson, Sydney, in March 1986 during which he was notified of his first staff appointment as equerry to the Queen, a post he held from 11 October 1986 until 16 September 1989. He was promoted to commander on 31 December 1988.
In October 1989, Laurence was posted to the frigate, and took over as commanding officer on 30 January 1990, at age 34. Between 1992 and 1994, Laurence served on the Naval Staff at the Ministry of Defence, London. On 16 May 1994, he was appointed the First Military Assistant to the Secretary of State for Defence, Malcolm Rifkind, to provide military advice in his private office.
Laurence was promoted as captain on 30 June 1995, and until 1996 commanded the frigate. In May 1996, the ship returned from the Adriatic, where HMS Cumberland served in the NATO-led IFOR Task Force. On 27 August 1996, Laurence was appointed Commanding Officer of the frigate as well as Captain of the 6th Frigate Squadron. Until October 1996, the ship was deployed to the South Atlantic, on patrol of the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory. In July 1997, Laurence returned to the Ministry of Defence, first on the Naval Staff and then from June 1998, on promotion to Commodore, as a member of the Implementation Team for the 1998 Strategic Defence Review.

Later career

Elected Hudson Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, in 1989, he wrote a paper on the relationship between humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping. He was then posted to the Joint Services Command and Staff College as a commodore, as Assistant Commandant, effective 15 June 1999. From 2001 to the spring of 2004, Laurence was back at the Ministry of Defence, as Director of Navy Resources and Programmes.
Promoted to rear admiral on 5 July 2004, and appointed Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff with responsibility for Resources and Plans, on 30 April 2007, Laurence was further promoted as vice admiral and appointed chief executive of Defence Estates.
In 2008, Laurence was admitted as a Younger Brother of Trinity House.
Laurence became Head of Profession for the British Government's Property Asset Management community in July 2009. The community includes practitioners in construction procurement, estates and property management, and facilities/contracts management. Laurence was awarded Honorary Membership by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors also in 2009.
Laurence retired from Royal Navy service in August 2010 and now pursues a portfolio of mainly non-executive and charitable interests, with a particular emphasis on property and regeneration. He served on the board of the project management company Capita Symonds until 2014 and is non-executive chairman of the property developers Dorchester Regeneration. He is non-executive chairman of Purfleet Centre Regeneration, a newly-established company specialising in site reclamation and regeneration. He was engaged as a senior military adviser to PA Consulting until 2015.
Laurence served as Master of the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers for 2010/11.
Chairman of the English Heritage Trust between April 2015 and December 2022, Laurence also served as Vice-Chairman of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission until 30 June 2019. A Trustee of the HMS Victory Preservation Company, his transport interests also include membership of the Great Western Advisory Board.
Laurence served as President of Kent CCC for 2020, and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2021.
In December 2023, Laurence was appointed Chairman of the Science Museum Group.
In January 2025 Laurence was forced to pull out of an official visit to South Africa with the Princess Royal after suffering from a torn ligament while working on their Gloucestershire estate, Gatcombe Park.

Marriage

Laurence met Princess Anne when serving as an equerry to Queen Elizabeth II in 1986, at a time when it was much rumoured that her first marriage to Captain Mark Phillips was breaking down. In 1989, the existence of private letters from Laurence to the Princess was revealed by The Sun newspaper, though it did not name the sender. Buckingham Palace issued a statement: "The stolen letters were addressed to the Princess Royal by Commander Timothy Laurence, the Queen's Equerry. We have nothing to say about the contents of personal letters sent to Her Royal Highness by a friend which were stolen and which are the subject of a police investigation."
Laurence and Anne married on 12 December 1992 in a Church of Scotland ceremony at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral Castle. Although not elevated to the peerage upon marrying into the royal family, Laurence was appointed a Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen in 2008 then invested in June 2011 as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. Advanced as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in August 2025, Sir Timothy will be able to display his coat of arms, once proven by the College of Arms, on an armorial plate at the Savoy Chapel alongside other GCVOs.
Anne kept her country estate, Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, after her divorce from Captain Mark Phillips. After she married Laurence, the couple leased, as their London residence, a flat in Dolphin Square, Westminster. They later moved to apartments in Buckingham Palace and now keep an apartment at St James's Palace.

Honours

File:RVO-Star.jpg|thumb|right|100px|GCVO star
Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order 21 August 2025
Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order 14 June 2011
Member of the Royal Victorian Order 23 August 1989
Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath – Military Division16 June 2007
General Service Medal18 October 1983, with 1 Clasp Northern Ireland and the oak leaf emblem for being mentioned in despatches
Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal6 February 2002
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal6 February 2012
Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal6 February 2022
King Charles III Coronation Medal6 May 2023
Companion of the Order of the Star of Melanesia 29 September 2005

Authored articles

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