The Duchess of Kent has died at the age of 92, Buckingham Palace has announced with “deep sorrow”.
A statement confirmed that she “passed away peacefully last night at Kensington Palace, surrounded by her family.” On Friday, the flag above Buckingham Palace was lowered to half mast.
Katharine, Duchess of Kent, was the oldest member of the Royal Family. She was married to Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, a first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
She will be remembered as a familiar face at the Wimbledon tennis championships, where she presented trophies and comforted losing players. One of the most famous moments came in 1993, when she consoled a tearful Jana Novotna on Centre Court.
In its announcement, the Palace said: “The King and Queen and all members of the Royal Family join the Duke of Kent, his children and grandchildren in mourning their loss and remembering fondly the duchess’s life-long devotion to all the organisations with which she was associated, her passion for music and her empathy for young people.”
A passionate supporter of the arts, the duchess was deeply involved with music throughout her life. She taught at a primary school in Hull, where her pupils knew her only as “Mrs Kent”, unaware of her royal identity.
She also supported a number of music charities and spoke often about the power of music to inspire and heal.
Her long association with Wimbledon became part of her public image. She was often seen in the Royal Box and on the court to hand over prizes.
In 1998, five years after consoling Novotna, she returned to present the Czech player with the trophy she had long sought. The duchess later spoke of her sorrow when Novotna died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 49.
Reports suggested that she later clashed with Wimbledon authorities after attempting to bring the 12-year-old son of a bereaved friend into the Royal Box.
Born Katharine Worsley in Yorkshire into a landowning family, she became part of the Royal Family in 1961 after marrying the Duke of Kent, a grandson of King George V. Their wedding at York Minster drew a royal congregation, with Princess Anne as a bridesmaid and Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles in attendance.
Though she undertook a regular programme of royal duties, the duchess also followed her own path. In 1994 she became the first senior royal in more than 300 years to convert to Catholicism, describing it as “a long-pondered personal decision.”
She was received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal Basil Hume, then Archbishop of Westminster.
She went on to volunteer for the Passage homelessness charity, co-founded by Cardinal Hume and now supported by the Prince of Wales.
The Duke and Duchess of Kent had three children, though the couple endured the heartbreak of a stillborn son in 1977. The duchess entered hospital for seven weeks during what officials at the time described as “nervous exhaustion.”
In later years, she spoke candidly about her struggles with “acute depression,” a subject rarely discussed publicly at the time.
Music remained a constant in her life. She sang with the Bach Choir and revealed that Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus” was her favourite piece when she appeared on BBC Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs.”
Yet her tastes were broad, and she also admitted a fondness for gangsta rap.
In later years she stepped back from using her royal HRH title, focusing instead on improving access to music education for children. She worked part-time as a teacher at Wansbeck Primary School in Hull from the mid-1990s, with neither parents nor pupils aware of her royal background.
She described disadvantaged communities as “estates with Berlin Walls around them” and established a charity to provide instruments to young people.
Speaking of her time as a teacher, she said: “My connection will always be there. I love those children, I love East Hull, I wouldn’t have stayed there for 13 years if I hadn’t.”
The Duchess of Kent is survived by her husband, the Duke of Kent, 89, along with their two sons and a daughter.
