Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge
(1797-1889)
8 October 1860

Volume 2, page 30, sitting number 1419.

The Duchess of Cambridge was the wife of Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge, the tenth child and seventh son of George III. The longest-lived daughter-in-law of George III, she was the mother of Princess Mary of Cambridge and therefore the maternal grandmother of Queen Mary, the consort of King George V.

Born Princess Augusta Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Cassel at Rumpenheim Castle, Cassel in Germany, on 7 July 1797, she was the third daughter of Friedrich III, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and his wife Caroline Polyxena, daughter of Prince Karl Willem of Nassau-Usingen. Her father was the son of Princess Mary (1723-1772), the third daughter of King George II. In 1803, he assumed the title of Elector of Hesse-Cassel.

On 7 May at Cassel and then again on 1 June 1818, Princess Augusta married her second cousin, the Duke of Cambridge. The couple had three children, the youngest of whom was Princess Mary of Cambridge.

From 1818 until the ascension of Queen Victoria and the separation of the British and Hanoverian crowns, the Duchess of Cambridge lived in Hanover, where the Duke served as viceroy on behalf of his brothers, King George IV and King William IV. In 1837 the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge returned to Great Britain, where they lived at Cambridge Cottage in Kew, and later at St James's Palace. The Duchess of Cambridge survived her husband by almost fifty years, dying at the age of 92 on 6 April 1889.