Ursula Bethell, Baroness Westbury
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6 May 1924
The Lady Westbury | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ursula Mary Rose James 6 May 1924 Mayfair, London, England |
| Died | 25 November 2023 (aged 99) |
| Spouse(s) |
David Bethell, 5th Baron Westbury
(m. 1947; died 2001) |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | Walter James, 2nd Baron Northbourne (grandfather) Aldred Lumley, 10th Earl of Scarbrough (grandfather) |
Ursula Mary Rose Bethell, Baroness Westbury CBE, GCStJ, JP (née James; 6 May 1924 – 25 November 2023) was a British peeress who served as superintendent-in-chief of St John Ambulance.
Lady Westbury was born Ursula Mary Rose James on 6 May 1924 at 21 Park Lane in Mayfair, the home of her maternal grandfather.[1] She was daughter of the Hon. Robert "Bobbie" James (1873–1960), third son of Walter, 2nd Baron Northbourne, and Lady Serena Lumley (1901–2000), only daughter of Aldred, 10th Earl of Scarbrough.[2][3] Portraits of Ursula and her younger sister Fay (1929–2002) by Bassano are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.[4]
Growing up in aristocratic circles in Central London, she befriended Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret of York who lived nearby at 145 Piccadilly. Ursula and Princess Elizabeth dined together at The Dorchester before her younger sister's coming-out ball at Apsley House in July 1947, the evening before the princess's engagement to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten was announced.[1]
She spent part of her childhood and the years of World War II at St Nicholas, her father's 17th-century home in Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Despite not being Roman Catholic, she was educated at the Convent of the Assumption in Richmond.[1]