Lady Helen Cynthia ColvilleDCVODBEOStJJPFRCM (née Milnes, later Crewe-Milnes; 20 May 1884 – 15 June 1968) was an English courtier and social worker, serving as a Woman of the BedchambertoQueen Mary, while at the same time devoting her energies to alleviating the suffering of Shoreditch, one of the poorest areas of the East End of London.
Colville was the third daughter of Robert Milnes, who succeeded when she was 15 months old as 2nd Baron Houghton (giving her the style "The Honourable"), by his first wife Sibyl, daughter of Sir Frederick Graham (of the Graham BaronetsofNetherby) and Lady Jane St Maur. She had an older sister, an older brother, and a twin sister.[citation needed]
Her mother died young, and Cynthia and her siblings lived for a time with their unmarried uncle, the 3rd Baron Crewe, before rejoining their father, a Liberal politician when he was posted to Dublin as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (from 1892 to 1895).[citation needed]
In 1895, having inherited Lord Crewe's estates on his death the previous year, her father adopted the surname Crewe-Milnes and was created Earl of Crewe, giving her the style of "Lady". In 1899, Lord Crewe re-married to Lady Margaret Etrenne Hannah "Peggy" Primrose (1881–1951), daughter of the 5th Earl of Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister from 1894 to 1895, and his wife Hannah, an heiress to the Rothschild fortune. Cynthia's new stepmother was only 18; Cynthia and her stepmother were but three years apart in age.
She married the Honourable George Charles Colville, younger son of the 1st Viscount Colville of Culross and his wife Cecile (née Carrington), on 21 January 1908. Their children were:
David Richard Colville (b. 11 May 1909 – d. 9 February 1987)
Major Philip Robert Colville (b. 7 November 1910 – d. 11 April 1997)
She started her work in Shoreditch, which was a slum (a "socially derelict square mile", as her son described the area), before World War I, focusing on infant mortality. The Socialist borough council co-opted her to their public health committee.[1]
In 1948, Shoreditch Council renamed a housing estate on Felton Street estate as "the Colville estate" in honour of her long association. In 1963, Lady Cynthia published her autobiography, Crowded Life: The Autobiography of Lady Cynthia Colville.[5]
L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London, UK: Heraldry Today, 1972), page 90
