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Caroline, Countess of Cranbrook, addressed as Lady Cranbrook, is an English aristocrat, titled by being the wife of Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 5th Earl of Cranbrook, and campaigner on food quality issues.
She was born Caroline Jarvis in Lincolnshire on 18 December 1935. Her father was Colonel Ralph George Edward Jarvis and her mother Antonia Mary Hilda Meade.
She married the Earl of Cranbrook on 9 May 1967, and took up the married name Caroline Gathorne-Hardy. Their early home was in a jungle area of Malaya, where her husband worked as a zoologist. After three years, they took up residence at his family seat, Great Glemham House, Great Glemham, Saxmundham, Suffolk. She ran the estate farm and raised their three children. When her husband inherited the Earldom of Cranbrook from his father, on 22 November 1978, she became a Countess.
She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2004, for services to the red meat industry, after campaigning to save local abattoirs. She is president of the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival.
She appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 31 May 2009, and received The Oldie's 'Campaigner of the Year' Award in 2010. The Prince of Wales has called her "the doughtiest fighter for good sense in agriculture".
She and her husband have three children. John Jason Gathorne-Hardy, Lord Medway (born 26 October 1968) is heir apparent to the Earldom. The others are Dr. Lady Flora Gathorne-Hardy (born 10 October 1971) and Hon. Angus Edward Gathorne-Hardy (born 28 May 1973).