Timothy Laurence

Early life and education

Timothy James Hamilton Laurence was born in Camberwell, South London, the son of Commander Guy Stewart Laurence, RN (also salesman for a marine engine manufacturer) and Barbara Alison Laurence, née Symonds. Timothy has an older brother Jonathan Dobree Laurence (c. May 1952).

Laurence was educated at The New Beacon Preparatory School and then at Sevenoaks School, Kent, and University College, University of Durham, on a Naval Scholarship, where he received a Bachelor of Science upper 2nd class honours degree in geography. At university, he edited the student newspaper, Palatinate, and was captain of his college cricket team.

Naval career

He was promoted to midshipman on 1 January 1973, and acting sub-lieutenant on 1 January 1975. Upon leaving Durham he completed his initial training at the Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, and was posted to HMS Aurora, a Plymouth-based frigate. He was promoted to lieutenant 10 months early, on 1 March 1977.

In 1978, he was attached to the training establishment HMS Vernon and in the next year served on the minesweeper HMS Pollington.

Laurence then served briefly as the second Navigating Officer of the Royal Yacht HMY Britannia, and from 1980 to 1982 he was Navigating Officer of the destroyer HMS Sheffield. He took command of the patrol boat HMS Cygnet off Northern Ireland in 1982, as part of the patrols for IRA gun-runners. For his services he was mentioned in despatches.

After attending HMS Dryad for the Principal Warfare Officer course, Laurence was promoted to lieutenant commander (1 March 1985), and posted to the frigate HMS Alacrity. He attended the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Tactics Course (RANTACCS) at HMAS Watson, Sydney in March 1986 during which he was notified of his first staff appointment commencing April 1986 as Equerry to The Queen. He was promoted to commander on 31 December 1988.

In October 1989, he was posted to the new frigate HMS Boxer, and took over as Commanding Officer on 30 January 1990, at the early age 34.

Between 1992 and 1994, Laurence served on the naval staff in the Ministry of Defence, London. On 16 May 1994, he was appointed the first Military Assistant to the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, to provide military advice in his private office.

Laurence was promoted to captain on 30 June 1995, and until 1996 commanded the frigate HMS Cumberland. In May 1996, the ship returned from the Adriatic, where HMS Cumberland served in the NATO-led IFOR Task Force. On 27 August 1996, Laurence was appointed Commanding Officer of the frigate HMS Montrose as well as Captain of the 6th Frigate Squadron. Until October 1996 the ship was deployed to the South Atlantic, on Falkland Islands patrol.

In July 1997, he returned to the Ministry of Defence, first on the Naval Staff and then from June 1998, on promotion to commodore, as a member of the Implementation Team for the 1998 Strategic Defence Review.

Later career

From January 1999 he was Hudson Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he wrote a paper on the relationship between humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping. He was then posted to the Joint Services Command and Staff College as a Commodore, as Assistant Commandant (Navy), effective 15 June 1999.

From 2001 to the spring of 2004 he was back at the Ministry of Defence, as Director of Navy Resources and Programmes.

Laurence was promoted to Rear Admiral to date 5 July 2004, and appointed Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff with responsibility for Resources and Plans, July 2004. On 30 April 2007 he was promoted to vice admiral, and appointed Chief Executive of Defence Estates (since renamed Defence Infrastructure Organisation, as of 2008).

He became Head of Profession for the British Government's Property Asset Management community in July 2009. The community includes practitioners in construction procurement, estates & property management and facilities/contracts management. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has made Laurence an Honorary Member in recognition of this very significant span of asset management responsibility.

He retired from the Navy in August 2010 and now pursues a portfolio of mainly non-executive and charitable interests, with a particular emphasis on property and regeneration. He was on the Board of the project management company, Capita Symonds, until 2014 and is non-executive Chairman of the property developers, Dorchester Regeneration. He is non-executive Chairman of Purfleet Centre Regeneration, a newly established company specialising in site reclamation and regeneration. He was a Senior Military Adviser to PA Consulting until 2015. He has been Chairman of the English Heritage Trust since April 2015 and is Vice Chairman of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. He is a Trustee of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Chairman of its Operations Committee and is a Trustee of the HMS Victory Preservation Company. Transport interests include membership of the Great Western Advisory Board; other activities include tennis, golf, sailing, field sports and battlefield tours.

Marriage

Laurence met Princess Anne when he served as an Equerry to Queen Elizabeth II in 1986, at a time when it was widely rumoured that her first marriage to Captain Mark Phillips was breaking down. In 1989, the existence of private letters from Laurence to the Princess was revealed by The Sun newspaper, though it did not name the sender. Buckingham Palace issued a statement: "The stolen letters were addressed to the Princess Royal by Commander Timothy Laurence, the Queen's Equerry. We have nothing to say about the contents of personal letters sent to Her Royal Highness by a friend which were stolen and which are the subject of a police investigation."

Laurence and Anne were married on 12 December 1992 in a Church of Scotland ceremony at Crathie Parish Church, Ballater, near Balmoral, the Church of Scotland permitting the remarriage of divorced people. He received no peerage on marriage, but was knighted by the Queen in June 2011 as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

Princess Anne kept her country estate, Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, after her divorce. After they were married, she and Laurence leased as their London residence, a flat in the Dolphin Square complex in Westminster. They later returned to apartments in Buckingham Palace and now have an apartment at St James's Palace.

Laurence does not undertake official royal engagements; however, he regularly accompanies Princess Anne on official duties and royal tours. He also regularly attends events with the Royal Family. On such occasions he is listed in the Court Circular as "Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence".

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