Timothy Laurence
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox military person Vice Admiral Sir Timothy James Hamilton Laurence (born 1 March 1955) is a British retired Royal Navy officer and husband of Anne, Princess Royal, the only sister of King Charles III.
Laurence served as equerry to Queen Elizabeth II from 1986 to 1989, before marrying her daughter, Princess Anne, in 1992.
Early life and education
Timothy James Hamilton Laurence was born on 1 March 1955 at Camberwell, South London, the younger son of Commander Guy Stewart Laurence Template:Post-nominals (1896–1982; later a sales executive for MAN Marine Engines), and Barbara Alison (née Symons, 1928–2019).<ref name="Facts">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He has an elder brother, Jonathan Dobree Laurence (born 1952). The Laurences descend patrilineally from Zaccaria Levy, a Jewish merchant who arrived in England from Venice (and possibly initially from Baghdad) in the late 18th century, by his wife Simcha Ana née Montefiore. Their son Joseph changed the family name to Laurence.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Laurence attended The New Beacon Preparatory School and then Sevenoaks School, Kent, before going up to read Geography at University College, University of Durham,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> on a Naval Scholarship, graduating with an Upper-Second Class Bachelor of Science (Hons). As an undergraduate, Laurence edited the student newspaper, Palatinate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Naval career
Laurence was commissioned into the Royal Navy as a midshipman on 1 January 1973, becoming an 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 Template:HMS, a Plymouth-based frigate.<ref name="Facts"/> He was promoted lieutenant 10 months early, on 1 March 1977. In 1978, Laurence was attached to the training establishment Template:HMS and in the next year served on the Ton-class minesweeper HMS Pollington.<ref name=forces>Template:Cite web</ref>
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 Template:HMS.<ref name="NT-bio">Template:Cite news</ref> He took command of the patrol boat HMS Cygnet off the Northern Irish coast in 1982, deployed to patrol for IRA gunrunners. For distinguished service in Northern Ireland Laurence was mentioned in despatches.<ref name=forces/>
After attending Template:HMS for the Principal Warfare Officer course he was posted to the frigate Template:HMS. Laurence was promoted lieutenant commander on 1 March 1985. He attended the Royal Australian Navy Tactics Course at HMAS Watson, Sydney, in March 1986 during which he was notified of his first staff appointment as equerry to the Queen,<ref name="NT-bio"/> a post he held from 11 October 1986 until 16 September 1989.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> He was promoted to commander on 31 December 1988.<ref name="NT-bio"/>
In October 1989, Laurence was posted to the frigate Template:HMS, and took over as commanding officer on 30 January 1990, at age 34. Between 1992 and 1994, Laurence served on the Naval Staff at the Ministry of Defence, London. On 16 May 1994, he was appointed the First Military Assistant to the Secretary of State for Defence, Malcolm Rifkind, to provide military advice in his private office.<ref name=forces/>
Laurence was promoted as captain on 30 June 1995, and until 1996 commanded the frigate Template:HMS. 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 Template:HMS as well as Captain of the 6th Frigate Squadron.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Until October 1996, the ship was deployed to the South Atlantic, on patrol of the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory. In July 1997, Laurence 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.<ref name=forces/>
Later career
Elected Hudson Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, in 1989, 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, Laurence was back at the Ministry of Defence, as Director of Navy Resources and Programmes.<ref name=line>Template:Cite news</ref>
Promoted to rear admiral on 5 July 2004,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and appointed Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff with responsibility for Resources and Plans, on 30 April 2007, Laurence was further promoted as vice admiral and appointed chief executive of Defence Estates (later renamed Defence Infrastructure Organisation).<ref name=line/>
In 2008, Laurence was admitted as a Younger Brother of Trinity House.<ref>www.trinityhouse.co.uk</ref>
Laurence became Head of Profession for the British Government's Property Asset Management community in July 2009. The community includes practitioners in construction procurement, estates and property management, and facilities/contracts management. Laurence was awarded Honorary Membership by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Hon. MRICS) also in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Laurence retired from Royal Navy service in August 2010 and now pursues a portfolio of mainly non-executive and charitable interests, with a particular emphasis on property and regeneration.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He served on the board of the project management company Capita Symonds until 2014 and is non-executive chairman of the property developers Dorchester Regeneration.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He is non-executive chairman of Purfleet Centre Regeneration, a newly-established company specialising in site reclamation and regeneration.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was engaged as a senior military adviser to PA Consulting until 2015.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Sir Timothy served as Master of the Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers for 2010/11.<ref>www.coachmakers.co.uk</ref>
Chairman of the English Heritage Trust between April 2015 and December 2022, Laurence also served as Vice-Chairman of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission until 30 June 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A Trustee of the HMS Victory Preservation Company,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> his transport interests also include membership of the Great Western Advisory Board.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Sir Timothy served as President of Kent CCC for 2020, and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) in 2021.<ref>www.sal.org.uk</ref>
In December 2023, Laurence was appointed Chairman of the Science Museum Group.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In January 2025 Sir Timothy was forced to pull out of an official visit to South Africa with the Princess Royal after suffering from a torn ligament while working on their Gloucestershire estate, Gatcombe Park.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Marriage
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Laurence met Princess Anne when serving as an equerry to Queen Elizabeth II in 1986, at a time when it was much 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."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Laurence and Princess Anne married on 12 December 1992 in a Church of Scotland ceremony at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral Castle<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (the Church of Scotland permits second marriages for divorcees). Although not elevated to the peerage upon marrying into the royal family, Laurence was appointed a Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen in 2008 then invested in June 2011 as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> Advanced as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in August 2025,<ref name=gcvo/> Sir Timothy will be able to display his coat of arms, once proven by the College of Arms, on an armorial plate at the Savoy Chapel alongside other GCVOs.<ref>www.centralchancery.org.uk</ref>
Princess Anne kept her country estate, Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, after her divorce from Captain Mark Phillips. After she married Laurence, the couple leased, as their London residence, a flat in Dolphin Square, Westminster. They later moved to apartments in Buckingham Palace and now keep an apartment at St James's Palace.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Honours
- 1983 (18 October): Mentioned in Despatches for distinguished service in Northern Ireland during the period 1 February 1983 to 30 April 1983.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
- 2004 (1 August): Appointed Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Sovereign (ADC)
- 2021 (9 December): Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA)<ref>Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence FSA - website of the Society of Antiquaries of London</ref>
- 2023 (27 September): Appointed patron of the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF)<ref>"Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence appointed Patron of the International Maritime Rescue Federation". IMRF. Retrieved on 27 September 2023.</ref>
Authored articles
References
External links
Template:S-start Template:S-mil Template:S-bef Template:S-ttl Template:S-aft Template:S-end Template:Moorsom family tree Template:Authority control
- Pages with broken file links
- 1955 births
- Living people
- People from Camberwell
- People educated at Sevenoaks School
- Alumni of University College, Durham
- English people of Jewish descent
- Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College
- Family of Anne, Princess Royal
- Companions of the Order of the Bath
- Equerries
- English geographers
- Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order
- Royal Navy vice admirals
- Mountbatten-Windsor family
- Palatinate (newspaper) editors
- Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London
- Presidents of Kent County Cricket Club
- Members of Trinity House