Alexandra Pelham, Lady Worsley

Who was Alexandra Pelham, Lady Worsley?

Alexandra Mary Freesia Pelham, née Vivian, Lady Worsley was a British volunteer and courtier.

Alexandra was a daughter of the 3rd Baron Vivian and a godchild of Alexandra, Princess of Wales. Among her siblings were Hon. Dorothy Maud, who later married General Haig, the senior commander of the British Expeditionary Force during World War I, and Hon. George Crespigny Brabazon, later 4th Baron Vivian.

On 31 January 1911, she married Lt. Charles Pelham, Lord Worsley, the eldest son and heir of the 4th Earl of Yarborough. In 1914, Lady Apsley's husband was killed on active service in Belgium during World War I after only three years of marriage. She purchased the land where Lord Worlsey's body was buried in the town of Zandvoorde, and after Worlsey's body was re-interred, the land became the site of the Household Cavalry Memorial.

The couple did not have any children and Lady Apsley did not remarry. In 1945, she was appointed an OBE for her service to the war effort with the WVS and became an Extra Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth in 1947. In 1953, she was promoted to a CBE for her work with the Victoria League and died, aged 73, in 1963.