Villiers, Margaret Elizabeth Child- (1849–1945)

English philanthropist . Name variations: Margaret Elizabeth Leigh, countess of Jersey. Born Margaret Elizabeth Leigh on October 29, 1849, in Stoneleigh Abbey, England; died on May 22, 1945; daughter of William Henry Leigh (b. 1824), 2nd Baron Leigh, and Caroline Amelia (Grosvenor) Leigh; married Victor Albert George Child-Villiers (1845–1915), 7th earl of Jersey (r. 1859–1915), on September 19, 1872; children: George Henry Robert Child-Villiers (b. 1873), 8th earl of Jersey; Margaret (1874–1874); Margaret Child-Villiers (b. 1875, who married Walter FitzUryan Rhys, 7th baron Dynevor); Beatrice Child-Villiers (b. 1880); Arthur George Child-Villiers (b. 1883).

Was the founder and president of Victoria League (1901–27); awarded DBE (1927).

Born in England a decade after Queen Victoria 's accession, Margaret Villiers, countess of Jersey, was to live through the reigns of five different monarchs. The daughter of the second Baron Leigh, Villiers married a peer in 1872, the 7th earl of Jersey. Known for much of her life as a society hostess, entertaining widely at both Middleton Park, Bicester, and Osterley Park, Isleworth, Villiers took an active interest in children's welfare. She was also one of the founders and president of the Victoria League, an organization that promoted international relations between countries in the British Empire (now the Commonwealth). Villiers worked on the League's behalf from 1901 to 1927, when she was named Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her services to the community.

Paula Morris , D.Phil., Brooklyn, New York