Rosalind Cubitt

Rosalind Maud Shand (née Cubitt; 11 August 1921 – 14 July 1994) was the daughter of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe. She was the wife of army officer Major Bruce Shand and the mother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

Childhood

Rosalind was born at 16 Grosvenor Street, London, on 11 August 1921, the eldest of the three children born to the Hon. Roland Calvert Cubitt (1899–1962) and his wife Sonia Rosemary Cubitt, (née Keppel; 1900–1986). Her father was the son of Henry Cubitt, 2nd Baron Ashcombe, and became 3rd Baron Ashcombe after his death. Rosalind's mother Sonia was the youngest daughter of the Hon. George Keppel and his wife, Alice Frederica Keppel (née Edmonstone).

Rosalind had two younger siblings: the Hon. Henry Cubitt, who succeeded his father as the 4th Baron Ashcombe and the Hon. Jeremy Cubitt, who died in 1958 at the age of 30. Her family was the aristocratic and wealthy Cubitt family, which founded the Cubitt construction company. She was a goddaughter of Dame Margaret Greville and inherited some of her fortune.

Rosalind was named by the press as the 1939 'Debutante of the Year'. She had her debutante ball on 6 July 1939 at the great Holland House in Kensington, London. It was attended by more than a thousand guests including famous entertainer Noël Coward and royals King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The ball was described as the last grand and great ball held at the house before it was destroyed during the Second World War.

Marriage and children

Rosalind met her future husband Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand (1917–2006), son of English journalist Philip Morton Shand and his first wife Edith Marguerite Harrington at the end of the Second World War. He later retired from the British Army after winning two Military Crosses and being a German prisoner of war. They married on 2 January 1946 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge in London. The couple bought a country house, the Laines in Plumpton, East Sussex and also maintained another house in South Kensington.

They had three children:

• Camilla Rosemary Shand (b. 17 July 1947), who married firstly Andrew Parker Bowles and had two children:
  • Thomas Henry Charles Parker Bowles (b. 1974)
  • Laura Rose Lopes née Parker Bowles (b. 1978)

and married secondly Charles, Prince of Wales

• Sonia Annabel Shand (b. 2 February 1949) married Simon Elliot and had three children:
  • Benjamin William Elliot (b. 1975)
  • Alice Rosalind Irwin née Elliot (b. 1977)
  • Katie Camilla Elliot (b. 1981)
• Mark Roland Shand (28 June 1951 – 23 April 2014) married Clio Goldsmith and had a child:
  • Ayesha Shand (b. 1995)

Career and charity work

Rosalind worked for an adoption agency before marriage. She volunteered at the Chailey Heritage Foundation, which helps young children with disabilities, in the 1960s and 1970s located at North Chailey, East Sussex. She worked there as a volunteer for 17 years. Her daughter Camilla opened a new facility there in 2013.

Death

She died at Lewes, East Sussex on 14 July 1994 aged 72, having long suffered from osteoporosis. Her mother Sonia also died from the same disease in 1986. She was survived by her husband, her three children and five grandchildren. Her youngest granddaughter Ayesha was born a year after her death.

Following Rosalind's death, Camilla became a member of the National Osteoporosis Society (a charity dedicated to improving the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of osteoporosis) in 1994 to help raise awareness of the disease. She became Patron of the charity in 1997, and was appointed President in 2001.

Ancestry

Books cited

• Brandreth, Gyles (2007). Charles and Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair. Random House. ISBN 0-09-949087-0.
• MacCarthy, Fiona (2006). Last Curtsey: The End of the Debutantes. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0571228591.
• Mitford, Deborah (2010). Wait for Me!: Memoirs. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0374207687.
• Lambert, Angela (2011). 1939: The Last Season of Peace. Bloomsbury Reader.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)