Ruth Alice Hannah Mary Wood

Background

She was the only child of Neil Primrose, son of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, and Lady Victoria Stanley, the third child of Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby.

Career

Her parents were married on 7 April 1915, but her father died in Palestine in 1917. Her widowed mother was remarried in 1919, to Malcolm Bullock, who was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1923 to 1953 and became a baronet in 1954. Her half-sister Priscilla was born in 1920, but Lady Victoria Bullock was killed in an accident while hunting with the Quorn 1927.

They had three children:

Lady Susan Diana Wood (born 22 September 1938), who married Brigadier Ian Darsie Watson in 1959.

Her husband was master of the Middleton Foxhounds for more than 30 seasons. He died in 1980.

Achievements

• She won the Epsom Derby with Shirley Heights in 1978.