Ann Parker Bowles


Dame Ann Parker Bowles was a British aristocrat and Girl Guides leader.

Background

Ann de Trafford was born in 1918 in London, the eldest daughter of millionaire racehorse owner Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 4th Baronet, and the Hon. Cynthia Hilda Evelyn Cadogan, a daughter of Henry Cadogan, Viscount Chelsea. The de Trafford Baronets descended from a pre-Conquest-founded line of lords of the manor who were wealthy in the Middle Ages and whose titles were reinstated in the mid-19th century due to recusancy — a term coined to describe the minority of English who remained Roman Catholic during and after the Reformation in a time of significant religious persecution. Ann continued to adhere to the religion of her family, Roman Catholicism.

Honours

Ann de Trafford was a Commissioner of the Commonwealth Girl Guides Association. For these and other services to the Commonwealth she was invested as Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1972, and, five years later, as a Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1977.

Marriage and children

On 14 February 1939 she married Derek Henry Parker Bowles, son of Eustace Parker Bowles and Wilma Mary Garnault Bowles, only daughter of Sir Henry Ferryman Bowles, 1st Baronet. They had four children:
Her eldest son Andrew was the first husband of Camilla Rosemary Shand who later became the Duchess of Cornwall on her marriage to the Prince of Wales.