Carole Elizabeth Middleton is a former flight attendant turned businesswoman, and mother of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and her siblings, Philippa "Pippa" Charlotte Middleton and James William Middleton.
Background
Researchers revealed in 2011 that Carole Middleton"s great-great-grandmother, Jane Liddle (d 1881), was a great-great-granddaughter of Sir Thomas Blakiston Conyers, 9th Bt (1731–1810), himself a descendant of King Edward IV. lieutenant was reported in December 2014 that Sir Thomas Conyers shared a direct ancestor with Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, née Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002). Their common ancestor was County Durham"s Sir William Blakiston. The famous Blakiston-Bowes Cabinet, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was created to celebrate the union of the Blakiston baronets and the Bowes-Lyon family.
This connection makes Carole a distant blood cousin of the Queen Mother.
Carole"s maternal great-grandfather was Durham coal miner John Harrison (1874–1956).
Her paternal great-great-grandfather was John Goldsmith (d 1888), a labourer and brick maker from Hoxton in the East End of London.
Career
She spent her early years in a small house in Southall, attending the local state schools. She met flight dispatcher Michael Francis Middleton while working with British Airways as a flight attendant. The couple were married on 21 June 1980, at the Church of Street James, in Dorney, Buckinghamshire.
In the mid 1980s, when her two eldest children were at a pre-school and the family was living at Bradfield Southend, she set up Party Pieces, a company which began by making party bags and which now sells party supplies and decorations by mail order.
By 1995 the firm, run by both Carole and Michael, was so successful that it moved into a range of farm buildings at Ashampstead Common. The Middletons" grandson, Prince George spent his first few weeks at Bucklebury Manor.
Royal Other.
Membership
Leeds-born Michael was the son of pilot Captain Peter Middleton, whose mother Olive, was a member of the Lupton family who are described in the City of Leeds archives as being "landed gentry. A political and business dynasty".