Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife: A Champion of Nursing, a Princess and a Duchess on Her Own

Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife held a very interesting position in the British Royal Family and the British peerage. As a royal, she shares the distinction together with her younger sister, Maud, as the only female-line descendants of a British sovereign officially granted both the title of Princess and the style of Highness. As a peer, she is one of the very few women to inherit their father’s titles.

Alexandra Victoria Alberta Edwina Louise was born May 17, 1891. Her father was Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife,  while her mother was Princess Louise of Wales,  the first daughter and third child of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). A younger sister, Maud, was born in 1893. At the time of her whyparents’ wedding, Alexandra’s father held the title as the 6th Earl Fife. On the day of the wedding, the Queen elevated Lord Fife to the further dignity of "Duke of Fife" and "Marquess of Macduff", in the County of Banff, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first dukedom of Fife contained a remainder that provided that the titles would pass to a male heir lawfully begotten.  However, ten years after their wedding, it was apparent that no more children would be born to Alexandra's parents and the dukedom and marquessate of Fife were headed toward extinction. On April 24, 1900   Queen Victoria, through a new letters patent, created a second Dukedom of Fife, along with the Earldom of Macduff in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. A special remainder allowed the daughters of the 1st Duke, and then to their male descendants, to inherit his titles, in the absence of a male heir.

In 1905, King Edward VII created Princess Louise as the Princess Royal of the United Kingdom, the highest dignity that could be bestowed upon the princess of the blood. As a female-line granddaughter of the British monarch, Alexandra was not entitled to the title of "Princess", nor to the style of Her Royal Highness.  At the same time of Princess Louise’s proclamation as Princess Royal, the King likewise declared that his two granddaughters would be styled as princesses, with the style and attribute of "Highness" and with precedence immediately after all members of the royal family bearing the style of "Royal Highness".  From that point, Princess Alexandra and Princess Maud held her title and rank, not from her ducal father, but from the decree issued by will of the sovereign (her grandfather).

In December 1911, the Princess Alexandra, together with her parents and sister, were sailing aboard SS Delhi en route to Egypt when they survived a shipwreck. Although they remained unharmed, the Duke of Fife contracted pleurisy and died at Assuan, Egypt, on January 29, 1912. Princess Alexandra, succeeded to the dukedom of 1900, becoming Duchess of Fife and Countess of Macduff.

On October 15, 1913, Princess Alexandra married her first cousin, once removed, Prince Arthur of Connaught at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, London. After their marriage, Alexandra was referred to as HRH Princess Arthur of Connaught, in accordance with the tradition that a wife normally shares the title and style of her husband. They had one child, Alaistar, Earl of Macduff (9 August 1914 – 26 April 1943).

Princess Louise, wearing long-sleeved dress, stands holding Baby Alexandra, cSeptember 1891. Photograph by W. & D. Downey. Image via Wikimedia Commons

Princess Alexandra of Fife (third from left) with her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Fife, and sister Princess Maud, c1902. Taken by W. & D. Downey. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Princess Alexandra of Fife, c1910. Photograph taken by W. & D. Downey. Image via Wikimedia Commons

Princess Arthur of Connaught, taken by A. Corbett. 

Prince and Princess Arthur of Connaught on their wedding day. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Princess Alexandra with her son, Alaistar, c1915. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Princess Alexandra and her son, Alaistar, c1919-1920. Image from Wikimedia Commons

 Prince and Princess Arthur of Connaught with their son, Alaistar and dog Vimy. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Princess Arthur of Connaught at women's exhibition, c1915. Image from Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons.

Prince and Princess Arthur became popular members of the British Royal Family, carrying out royal engagements on behalf of  King George V, and later for  King George VI. She also served as a Counsellor of State between 1937 and 1944. During World War I, she pursued the nursing vocation, working fulltime as a staff of St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington,  until the armistice.  When Prince Arthur was appointed governor-general of the Union of South Africa, Princess Arthur accompanied her husband and ably performed her role as viceregal consort. She displayed tact and friendliness among the South Africans, while her interest for hospitals, child welfare, and maternity work endeared her to the locals. 

Upon her return to London in 1923, Princess Arthur resumed her nursing career at University College Hospital, where worked under the name of Nurse Marjorie. By the time she moved to Charing Cross Hospital, she was already specializing in surgery. In fact, she was quite capable that she could already perform minor operations herself and was also adept at instructing juniors in their duties. Her services to the nursing profession were recognized in July 1925, when she was awarded the badge of the Royal Red Cross by George V.

At the height of World War II, rather than move to the country and serve as matron of a hospital, Princess Arthur  stayed in the city amidst the bombing of London, where she served as a sister-in-charge of the casualty clearing station of the Second London General Hospital. She opened the Fife Nursing Home in Bentinck Street. Using her own money and resources, she equipped and operated the nursing home for the next ten years with great competence.

On April 26, 1943 her only child, Alastair, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, died unexpectedly while in Canada. Through the 1940s, Princess Arthur began to suffer from multiple-rheumatoid-arthritis. She was  significantly crippled after the war that she was forced her to close her nursing-home in 1949. She retired to her house near Regent's Park and spent time writing two autobiographical accounts, A Nurse's Story (1955) and Egypt and Khartoum (1956). The books were written in an engaging style, while the latter contained vivid descriptions of the shipwreck of SS Delhi. She was writing another volume of memoirs, this time on big-game hunting in South Africa, when she died at her London home on 26 February 1959. She requested that her remains be cremated, and her ashes were deposited in St. Ninian's Chapel, Braemar on the Mar Lodge estate. The dukedom of Fife passed on to her nephew (her sister Maud predeceased her in 1945) James Carnegie, 12th Earl of Southesk, while Mar Lodge and its estates, were inherited by Captain Alexander Ramsay of Mar, the only child of Princess Patricia of Connaught.