Kinlight · The British Royal Line

Catherine, Princess of Wales

1982 – · Generation XXXIX · Princess of Wales · House of Windsor

Portrait of Catherine, Princess of Wales

Catherine, Princess of Wales, was born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading on 9 January 1982, the eldest of the three children of Michael and Carole Middleton. When she was two the family moved to Amman in Jordan, where she went to nursery school, and they returned to Berkshire in 1986. She grew up in the village of Bucklebury and was educated at St Andrew’s School in Pangbourne and at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where she took A-levels in chemistry, biology and art and played tennis, hockey and netball. After a gap year that included a course at the British Institute in Florence and a Raleigh International expedition in Chile, she went to the University of St Andrews in 2001. She graduated in 2005 with a degree in the history of art. It was at St Andrews that she met Prince William, a fellow student.

After university she worked for a time as an accessories buyer for the clothing chain Jigsaw and also for her parents’ mail-order business, Party Pieces. Her engagement to Prince William was announced in November 2010, and they were married at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011, when she became Duchess of Cambridge. The couple lived at first on Anglesey, where William was serving as an RAF search and rescue pilot. They have three children: Prince George, born on 22 July 2013, Princess Charlotte, born on 2 May 2015, and Prince Louis, born on 23 April 2018.

Her public work has centred on young children and on mental health. In 2017 she, William and Prince Harry led the Heads Together campaign, which brought eight mental health charities together to encourage people to talk more openly. Convinced that problems such as addiction and homelessness often have their roots in the first years of life, she convened a group of experts on early childhood in 2018, ran a national survey on the under-fives in 2020, founded the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in June 2021 and launched its Shaping Us campaign in 2023. A keen photographer and patron of the National Portrait Gallery, she led the gallery’s Hold Still project during the pandemic of 2020, which drew more than 31,000 submissions. She has been patron of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club since 2016 and presented the ladies’ singles trophy at Wimbledon in 2022.

When Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022 and Charles III became king, William became heir to the throne. The following day the King created him Prince of Wales, and Catherine became Princess of Wales. As of 2025 she holds several honorary military appointments, among them Colonel of the Irish Guards and, since August 2023, Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm. She is a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order and a Royal Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour.

On 22 March 2024 she announced in a video statement that she had been diagnosed with cancer and had begun a course of chemotherapy. In September 2024 she said that the chemotherapy was complete, and on 14 January 2025 she said in a further statement that she was in remission.

Place in the family

  • Catherine, Princess of Wales married William, Prince of Wales, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II.

Images

One of 53 people of House of Windsor (from 1917) in this archive. The present house — it renamed itself Windsor in 1917, setting aside the German title Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

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Children

Life

  • 1982 — Born
  • 2011 — Married William, Prince of Wales

Sources

  1. The Princess of Wales · The Royal Family (royal.uk)
  2. Catherine, Princess of Wales · Wikipedia
  3. Kate, Princess of Wales: I am having cancer treatment (22 March 2024) · BBC News
  4. Kate reveals she is in remission from cancer (14 January 2025) · BBC News
  5. Britain’s Princess Kate says her cancer is in remission · NPR

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