Caroline, Countess of Cranbrook
Caroline Gathorne-Hardy, Countess of Cranbrook is an English aristocrat and campaigner on food quality issues. She is the wife of Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 5th Earl of Cranbrook.
She was born in London in 1935, the daughter of Colonel Ralph George Edward Jarvis of Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire and his wife, Antonia Mary Hilda Meade. Both of her parents were in MI6, and she moved to Portugal as a girl.
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 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.
Lady Cranbrook 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:
