The Times. 2nd February 1929. Obituary. We regret to announce that Elisabeth Lady Carnarvon [deceased] died yesterday morning at Portofino, to which place she had just come from Albania, the country of which she was so great a benefactor. During the War she was in Egypt and was given special powers of visiting all hospital ships and distributing comforts to the patients. During the last few years she had been living in Albania, where she established hospitals, schools, and anti-malaria clinics, for which she also provided supplies of quinine, which it had been before impossible to secure. She did good work among the people who came down from Northern Albania at the time of the famine, and established a village for refugees, which was called Herbert, after her son, Colonel Aubrey Herbert. She established Boy Scout troops, visited the prisons, and one of the last things she did was to found a library at Tirana. She made an appeal in The Times last August for the Albanian Educational Fund, of which she and Lord Cecil of Chelwood [aged 64] were hon. treasurers, asking for books for the students' library and for money to found Albanian studentships abroad. The whole idea in her mind was to continue the work of her son and to forward peace in the Balkans. She was assisted in her work in Albania by Miss Durham and Mrs. Bennington. Lady Carnarvon was Elizabeth Catharine, eldest daughter of Mr. Henry Howard, of Greystoke. She married, in 1878, as his second wife, the fourth Earl of Carnarvon, a states man who, as Colonial Secretary and as Lord Lieuteniant of Ireland, played a notable part in the politics of his day. He died in 1890. Her elder son, Colonel Aubrey Herbert, M.P., traveller, diplomnatist, soldier, and politiciau, who died in September, 1923, was a man of an extraordinarily attractive personality, less rare a century ago perhaps than it is to-day, whose short life was crowded with adventure. His death was a great blow to his innumerable friends; what it meant to his mother can be judged to some extent by her constant devotion to the little country of which he was so faithful a friend. Lady Carnarvon was also a strong supporter of the Vocal Therapy Society, established on Armistice Day, 1918, to provide qualified teachers for ex-Servicemenu in pensions hospitals, and to form them into choirs called King's Services' Choirs. The benefit to the men by the exercise of the healing art of song has been most marked, and Lady Carnarvon was accustomed to appeal for support periodically by interesting letters in The Times. Lady Carnarvon leaves a son, the Hon. Mervyn Herbert [aged 46], late of the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office. She was the stepmother of Baroness Burghelere [aged 65], Lady Margaret Duckworth [aged 58], and Lady Victoria Herbert [aged 54].
Click to read more ...
