Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn

Alexandra Anastasia "Sacha" Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, OBE (b. 27 February 1946, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.) is the wife of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn.^[1]

Royal ancestry

The Duchess of Abercorn and her children (as well as her sister, Natalia) are in the line of succession to the British throne as descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover. They are also descendants of the Russian author, Alexander Pushkin, as well as his African great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was both a tribal prince and a protégé of Peter the Great. It is through their Russian grand ducal father that Alexandra and Natalia are descended from Sophia, Electress of Hanover.

The sisters are related to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: Their maternal grandmother was born Countess Anastasia de Torby (later Lady "Zia" Wernher), younger morganatic daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mihailovich of Russia (a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia) by his wife Countess Sophie von Merenberg, morganatic daughter of Prince Nikolaus of Nassau (himself brother of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg) by his wife Natalya Aleksandrovna, the younger daughter of Russia's most renowned poet, Pushkin.

Lady Zia's sister Countess Nadezhda de Torby (or "Nada") was the wife of George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, elder maternal uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh. The Torby sisters were third cousins of the prince through their common ancestor, Tsar Nicholas I.

The Duchess of Abercorn is a close friend of the Duke of Edinburgh, and her sister, the Duchess of Westminster, is a godmother of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. The Duke of Abercorn was a first cousin of John, 8th Earl Spencer, father of Diana, Princess of Wales, through their mutual ancestor James Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn.

She is the eldest daughter of Lt.-Col. Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips (1909–1980) and his wife, Georgina Wernher (1919–2011).^[1] Her younger sister is Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster. Her paternal grandparents were Col. Joseph Harold John Phillips and his wife Mary Mercedes Bryce, whose niece Janet Mercedes Bryce (daughter of Major Francis Bryce of Hamilton, Bermuda) married David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven, son of Nadejda Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, sister of Alexandra's grandmother.

Siblings

• Nicholas Harold Phillips (23 August 1947 – 1 March 1991)
• Fiona Mercedes Phillips (born 30 March 1951)
• Marita Phillips (born 28 May 1954)
• Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster (born 8 May 1959)

Marriage

On 20 October 1966, Alexandra Anastasia Phillips married James Hamilton, Marquess of Hamilton (who in 1979, succeeded as the 5th Duke of Abercorn), son of James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Abercorn and Lady Mary Katherine Crichton, in Westminster Abbey. The Duke and Duchess of Abercorn have two sons and a daughter:

• James Harold Charles Hamilton, Marquess of Hamilton (born 19 August 1969),^[1] who was married on 7 May 2004 at the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks, to Tanya Marie Nation (b. 1971), eldest daughter of Douglas Percy Codrington Nation, senior managing director of Bear Stearns (1942–2001) and his wife Barbara Anne Brookes. They have two children, James Alfred Nicholas Hamilton, styled Viscount Strabane (born 30 October 2005) and Lord Claud Douglas Harold Hamilton (b. 12 December 2007).
• Lady Sophia Alexandra Hamilton (born 8 June 1973),^[1] who was a model before 1996. She married British war journalist Anthony Loyd in 2002, but they divorced, without children, in 2005.
• Lord Nicholas Edward Hamilton (born 5 July 1979). He married Tatiana Kronberg (born 1976), daughter of Evgeni Kronberg and Irinia Grichtchenko, on 30 August 2009 in New York.

The Duchess and her family reside at Baronscourt, near Drumquin, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Public roles

• The Duchess is the founder of the Pushkin Prizes. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours for her work with the Pushkin Trust.^[2]
• The Duchess is the Honorary Secretary of the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma & Transformation in Omagh, County Tyrone, site of an 1998 Real IRA bombing that left 29 people dead (one of whom was pregnant with twins). She is also the patron of the Omagh Community Youth Choir, founded in the aftermath of 1998.
• The Duchess is the House Patron of Abercorn House at Cambridge House Grammar School, Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Footnotes

External links

• The Duchess receives The Ireland Fund of Monaco's Princess Grace Humanitarian Award 2006