Carole Elizabeth Goldsmith was born on 31 January 1955 in Perivale, London, the daughter of Ronald (1931–2003) and Dorothy Goldsmith (née Harrison; 1935–2006), great-granddaughter of coal-miner's wife Jane Harrison (née Liddle; c.1839–1881) whose great-great grandfather was Sir Thomas Conyers, 9th Baronet.[2][3][4][5]
She initially left school aged 16, but soon returned and achieved four A Levels.[10] She originally planned on being a teacher, but her parents were unable to put her through university. She subsequently worked as a shop assistant for John Lewis before being hired as a secretary for British Airways.[10] She then transferred to ground crew and by her marriage in 1980 was working as a flight attendant.[10][11]
In 1987, Middleton established Party Pieces, a company that began by making party bags and which then sold party supplies and decorations by mail order. Middleton first began the business "at her kitchen table" and distributed thousands of leaflets to advertise locally.[12] Her husband quit his job at British Airways to join her at the company in 1989.[13] In 1995, the firm's growth necessitated its headquarters be moved to a range of farm buildings at Ashampstead Common.[14][15] Party Pieces was sold in May 2023 after it fell into administration.[16] The company owed £2.6 million to creditors when it collapsed, including £612,685 owed to HM Revenue and Customs, £218,749 owed to Royal Bank of Scotland for a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan, and £20,430 to an Afghan refugee whose small business was a supplier of helium gas.[17][18][19] The company's administrator's report stated that unsecured creditors were unlikely to be paid.[20]
The Middleton family's wealth is the result of their business combined with the trust funds inherited from Olive Christiana Middleton (née Lupton), who the BBC reported in 2011 as being Michael Middleton's aristocrat grandmother.[32] This wealth has resulted in the Middletons being reported to be multi-millionaires.[33][34][35]
^Graham, H. (11 March 2021). "The surprising link the Queen and the Duchess of Cambridge share to Gateshead". Trinity Mirror North East. Retrieved 6 March 2024. But another branch of the Blakison family would eventually wind its way down to Sir Thomas Blakiston Conyers, himself a descendent of King Edward IV, and the great-great-grandfather of Jane Liddle, herself the great-great-grandmother of Kate's mother, Carole Middleton [and her brother Gary]...
^Smith, Sean (2011). "Chapter 1". Kate: A Biography of Kate Middleton. First Gallery Books. p. Page 2. ISBN9781451661569. Retrieved 29 November 2014. Eventually Dorothy and Ron moved into a council flat nearby before borrowing the deposit to buy a small house of their own in Southall, where they were living when Carole was born in 1955.
^Wood, M. "The ancestry of Catherine (Kate) Middleton". William Addams Reitwiesner & Michael J. Wood. Archived from the original on 18 August 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2019. Carole Elizabeth Goldsmith, b. Perivale Maternity Hospital, Perivale, Middlesex, 31 Jan. 1955 [entry no. 82], in 1980 a stewardess
^Ward, Victoria (3 August 2020). "Duchess of Cambridge reveals Red Cross nurse past of her grandmother". UK Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 19 March 2024. In 1915, she [Olive Middleton] ticked "Miss" as her marital status and duly became a nurse, working at Gledhow Hall in Leeds, home to her second cousin Baroness Airedale and used as a VAD hospital, until 1917 before spending three months in 1918 at Roundhay Auxiliary Military Hospital
^Rayner, Gordon. "Middle-class Duchess of Cambridge's relative wore crown and attended George Vs coronation". UK Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 April 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2013. News – page 7; "(Michael Middleton's) ancestors were very much landed gentry, and as we now know some of them were titled...Baroness Airedale was the second cousin of Olive Middleton..." (Page 7) Middle-class Duchess of Cambridge's relative wore crown and attended George Vs coronation
^"Duchess of Cambridge returns to St Andrew's School". BBC News. 30 November 2012. Archived from the original on 17 July 2016. Retrieved 25 February 2016. Catherine joined the school at four years old when her family returned to West Berkshire in 1986 after spending two-and-a-half years in Jordan.
^Brennan, Zoe (19 March 2011). "The family fortune of the minted Middletons". UK Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 3 July 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015. This (flat) was bought with cash for £780,000 in 2002 and is worth some £1.2 million now (in 2011). Land Registry records show there is no mortgage on it.
^"Royal wedding: Family tree". BBC News. UK. 13 April 2011. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2015. He (R. Noel Middleton) attended Clifton College in Bristol as a boarder before heading to Leeds University and qualifying as a solicitor. He met and married aristocrat Olive Christiana Lupton.
^A Photographic Archive of Leeds, Leodis. "Potternewton Hall, Potternewton Lane". UK Gov. City of Leeds. Archived from the original on 16 October 2017. Retrieved 12 November 2014. When Olive Middleton died in 1936, her will shows that she left a personal estate of £52,031. Olive's will also discloses that by 1936 there were three separate family trusts in operation controlling the bulk of her and her family's fortune
^Lewis, Jason (27 November 2010). "How a Victorian industrialist helped Kate Middleton's parents". UK Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 5 July 2015. Retrieved 12 November 2014. By 1936 there were three separate family trusts in operation controlling the bulk of her and her family's fortune