Born Valerie Hamilton Monckton, she was the only daughter of Mary Adelaide Somes Colyer-Ferguson and Sir Walter Monckton (later 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley). She was born at Ightham Mote, which was owned by her maternal grandfather, Sir Thomas Colyer-Fergusson, until his death in 1951.
She was educated at Downe House, near Newbury.
Valerie Hamilton, Honorary Her only brother, Gilbert (1915 - 2006), became a Major-General in the British Army. Her father was a British lawyer and politician, and became chief legal advisor to King Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis in 1936.
She acted as her father"s secretary and courier during the crisis, carrying letters between the King and the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin.
In the Second World War, she joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry before switching to the Auxiliary Territorial Service. After the war, the couple returned to Ireland, where Sir Basil and his family managed Goulding Chemicals.
In 1951, she co-founded, with Kathleen O"Rourke, the Central Remedial Clinic in a couple of rooms in central Dublin, to provide non-residential care for disabled people. The Clinic later moved to a purpose building in Clontarf in 1968.
The Clinic"s foundation initiated a revolution in the treatment of physical disability and rapidly grew to by far the largest centre dealing with the needs of disabled people.
Lady Goulding remained chairman and managing director of the Cyclic Redundancy Check until 1984. On account of her widespread popularity, in 1977 she was nominated by the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, to Seanad Éireann, where she worked to raise awareness of disability issues. She sought election to Dáil Éireann twice as a Fianna Fáil candidate, both times unsuccessfully.
(Hillery ultimately was re-elected).
Lady Goulding died, aged 84, on 28 July 2003, in a nursing home.
She served as a member of Seanad Éireann from 1977 to 1981.
