Katharine, the Duchess of Kent, a member of the British royal family who was a longtime patron of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, died in London on Thursday. She was 92.
Buckingham Palace, which announced her death, did not provide additional details.
The duchess kept a low profile for a member of the royal family, fulfilling less visible duties and steering clear of scandal at a time when more prominent royals were sometimes embroiled in it.
To those who were not regular royal watchers, she was best known for comforting the losing finalist Jana Novotna in 1993 at Wimbledon, where the duchess was a regular. As The New York Times wrote at the time, Novotna “cried on the well-tailored shoulder of the Duchess of Kent.”
Katharine Lucy Mary Worsley was born on Feb. 22, 1933, in Hovingham in Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Sir William Worsley, a wealthy landowner, and Joyce Morgan Brunner.
Though not royal, her family was aristocratic — she was born in the estate Hovingham Hall, on land the family had owned for 400 years — and she mixed with the smart set.
That led her to meeting Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, a grandson of King George V and Queen Elizabeth II’s first cousin. She married him in York Minster, the Gothic cathedral in York, in 1961 and became the duchess.
The duke was known as Steady Eddie, a dependable sort unlikely to bring the monarchy into disrepute. He survives her, as do their children, George the Earl of St. Andrews, Lady Helen Taylor and Lord Nicholas Windsor; and 10 grandchildren.
She was regularly seen in the royal box at Wimbledon, where her husband served as president for a half century, often delivering the winning trophy to its champions.
Ms. Novotna lost the 1993 women’s final to Steffi Graf after blowing a 4-1 lead in the final set, and became emotional during the presentation of the trophies. Defying traditional royal decorum, the duchess embraced Ms. Novotna and predicted she would win the title someday.
It was a humanizing moment for a member of a royal family that could sometimes seem distant.
When Ms. Novotna won the title in 1998, fulfilling the duchess’s prediction, the two shared another moment. “The duchess clasped Novotna’s hands in hers and told her she was proud of her, and then gave the quivering champion the silver winner’s plate that had eluded her in 1993 and 1997,” The Times reported. “Novotna raised it high above her head and cried some more.”
The duchess converted to Catholicism in 1994. She was the first member of the officially Anglican royal family to do so in more than 300 years.
She continued to make public appearances until she stepped back from most of her royal duties in 2002. “For many years, she was one of our hardest working royals,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said in a statement on Friday.
Her ceremonial appearances may have been brief, they often made a lasting impact on the people involved. After her death, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, for example, called the duchess’s opening of the railway in 1973 “a moment we will always treasure.”
The British government ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on Friday to mark her death.
The duchess had a number of health issues. A case of German measles in 1975 led her to terminate a pregnancy, followed two years later by a stillbirth, which led to a bout of depression that she spoke about publicly. She spent time in the hospital in 1978 for what was described as “nervous exhaustion” and suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome.
She also quietly began to live a largely separate life from the duke, although they never divorced and reportedly grew closer in recent years.
Music played a big part in the duchess’ life; she played piano and violin and sang. She had briefly worked as a kindergarten teacher before her marriage, and starting in the mid 1990s she discreetly worked as a music teacher at Wansbeck Primary School in Hull, in her home county of Yorkshire.
“I’ve studied music all my life; it’s my passion,” she told The Hull Daily Mail in a 2004 article that revealed her role after a decade of teaching below the radar. “My other passion is children.”
The job was so low profile that many at the school did not know she was a royal, she said. To her young pupils, she was “Mrs. Kent.”
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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