Queen Mary’s Women of Hampshire Brooch

Queen Mary’s Women of Hamshire Brooch consists of a “pavé-set top with claw-set collet brilliants in the form of a foliage spray, with hinged loop for use as a pendant, suspending three bell-flowers, from which hang a pavé-set baroque pearl and two pear-shaped diamond pendants with open-back settings; the pearl and diamond drops are detachable.”¹

The brooch was originally made as a pendant by Garrard. It was given to the future Queen Mary upon her marriage to the then Duke of York by the women of Hampshire. The committee was led by the Duchess of Wellington. Mary wrote her “warmest and most heartfelt thanks for the lovely present… which I shall often wear.”¹ Mary later had the pendant converted into a brooch.

The brooch was bequeathed to Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

1. The Queen’s Diamonds by Hugh Roberts p.151