Childhood and Education

The Duchess of Cornwall was born Camilla Rosemary Shand on 17th July 1947 at King’s College Hospital London, the daughter of Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand and the Hon Rosalind Maud Shand (nee Cubitt).

Major Shand and the Hon Rosalind Cubitt, the daughter of 3rd Baron Ashcombe, married on 2nd January 1946 at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge.

Her Royal Highness has a sister, Annabel Elliot, and a brother, Mark Shand. Mark Shand, a conservationist, died on 23rd April 2014.

The Shand family lived in East Sussex from 1951 onwards. Major Shand, MC and Bar, was Vice Lord-Lieutenant of East Sussex and Master of the South Down Hounds for 19 years. He died aged 89 on 11th June 2006 at his home in Dorset.

Mrs Rosalind Shand was 72 when she died in 1994 as a result of osteoporosis. The Duchess's grandmother had died from the same condition eight years earlier.

The Duchess was first educated at Dumbrells School, in Sussex, and then at Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington. She also attended Mon Fertile school in Switzerland and studied at the Institut Britannique in Paris.

The Duchess is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Sir Allan MacNab, who was prime minister of the Province of Canada before Confederation and the builder of Dundurn Castle in Hamilton.

The Prince and Duchess made their first visit to Canada together in 2009 and visited Dundurn Castle which is a National Historic Site. Following the visit, Her Royal Highness agreed to become Patron of the Dundurn National Historic Site.