Name Cynthia Viscountess | ||
Dame Cynthia Mary Brooke, Viscountess Brookeborough DBE (née Sergison; 10 May 1897 – 2 March 1970) was a British peeress and the wife of the first Viscount Brookeborough, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1943–63.
Cynthia was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, to Captain Charles Warden Sergison and the Hon. Florence Emma Louise Hanbury-Tracy, daughter of Charles Hanbury-Tracy, 4th Baron Sudeley. In 1919, she married Viscount Brookeborough (9 June 1888 – 18 August 1973), son of Sir Arthur Douglas Brooke, 4th Bt. and Gertrude Isabella Batson, on 3 June 1919. Lord and Lady Brookeborough had three sons, two of whom were killed in action during World War II. Only one son of the three survived his parents. They were:
In World War II, she was Senior Commandant of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Brooke was styled as Viscountess Brookeborough from 1 July 1952, when her husband was created Viscount Brookeborough. In the 1959 Birthday Honours, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), for public services in Northern Ireland.
Death
She died on 2 March 1970, aged 72. After her death, Lord Brookeborough married Sarah Eileen Bell, daughter of Henry Healey, of Belfast, and widow of Cecil Armstrong Calvert, FRCS, former director of neurosurgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.