Mabell Frances Elizabeth Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie, GCVO, GBE, DStJ (née Gore; 10 March 1866, Mayfair, London - 7 April 1956, Paddington, London) was a British courtier and author.
She was born the eldest daughter of Arthur Gore, Viscount Sudley and his wife, Edith, daughter of Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn. When her mother died in 1871, she and her sisters were raised by their maternal grandmother, Lady Jocelyn, educated by governesses, and made visits to the Duchess of Teck at White Lodge, where Mabell met and befriended the Duchess’s daughter, Princess May (later Queen Mary). When her grandfather, Philip Gore, 4th Earl of Arran died in 1884 and her father inherited the former’s titles, she and her sisters were entitled to the nominal prefix of Lady.
In 1886 she married an army officer, David Ogilvy, 11th Earl of Airlie at St George’s, Hanover Square, becoming Countess of Airlie. They had six children.
On the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, Lord Airlie accompanied his regiment, the 12th Royal Lancers, to South Africa, where he was killed in action at the Battle of Diamond Hill in 1900. Lady Airlie then began to manage Cortachy Castle in Angus on behalf of her eldest son, David, the new Earl. In 1901 she became a Lady of the Bedchamber to her old friend May, now the Princess of Wales. On the accession of King George V in 1910, Lady Airlie was retained at court as a Lady of the Bedchamber to the now-Queen Mary.
When Lady Airlie’s eldest son married in 1917, she moved from Cortachy Castle to Airlie Castle, where she began to edit family letters in her possession, for publication.
In 1953, the countess’s employer and lifelong friend, Queen Mary, died, and Elizabeth II appointed her a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) for her many years of service. She later moved from Airlie Castle to Bayswater Road, London in 1955. She died there a few weeks after her ninetieth birthday in 1956.
