Portrait of Mary of Teck

Birthday profile

Mary of Teck

Mary of Teck, English-born queen consort of the United Kingdom (died 1953)

Born
May 26, 1867
Died
March 24, 1953
Zodiac sign
Gemini
Birth year
1867

About Mary of Teck

Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 6 May 1910 until 20 January 1936 as the wife of King George V. Born in Kensington and raised in Belgravia, Mary was the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, a German nobleman, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. She was informally known as "May", after the month of her birth. At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, who was second in line to the throne. Six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during a pandemic. The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor's only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales. As queen consort from 1910, Mary supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George's death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne. To her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, George VI, until his death in 1952. Mary died the following year, ten weeks before her granddaughter Elizabeth II was crowned. An ocean liner, a battlecruiser, and a university were named in her honour. Victoria Mary of Teck was born on 26 May 1867 at Kensington Palace, London, in the room where Queen Victoria, her first cousin once removed, had been born 48 years and two days earlier.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Mary of Teck timeline

  1. Victoria Mary of Teck was born on 26 May 1867 at Kensington Palace, London, in the room where Queen Victoria, her first cousin once removed, had been born 48 years and two days earlier.
  2. As queen consort from 1910, Mary supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war.

The world when Mary of Teck was born

Mary of Teck was born in 1867. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineUS purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million
  • Technology milestoneDynamite patented by Alfred Nobel
  • Notable inventionDynamite
  • World population~1.47B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderAndrew Johnson
  • U.S. population34.5M

1867 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Mary of Teck's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18672026
Population34.5M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.