Mary Beatrice Rundle Commander of the Order of the British Empire, was a Superintendent of the Women"s Royal Naval Service.
Background
She was born in Swaythling, Southampton in 1907. Rundle was the daughter of Rear Admiral Mark Rundle (1871–1958), Defence Science Organisation, Registered Nurse, Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour, who began his military career as an Engineer Lieutenant and was promoted to Engineer Commander on 6 July 1909.
Career
Before the Second World War, she worked as a private secretary on the 1935 Royal Commission on the Coal Industry in Alberta, Canada. Following her military service, she worked for the Metal Box company. Rundle trained as a secretary before World World War World War II In 1935, she served as private secretary to Sir Montague Barlow, Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry in Alberta.
In the war she was in charge of Portsmouth WRNS under Admiral Sir William James.
She then became Superintendent, the third highest post in the service. After the war at the Admiralty she helped plan the continuation of the service in peacetime and then retired.
She then became secretary to the Managing Director of the large packaging firm Metal Box until retiring in the early 1960s to a cottage in Outgate on Windermere in the Lake District. In 2007, when a party was held to mark her 100th birthday near her Lake District home, she was listed as a Vice-President of the Women"s Royal Naval Service Benevolent Trust.
A portrait photograph of Rundle is held by the Portrait National Portrait Gallery.