Mildred Buxton, Countess Buxton


Mildred Anne Buxton, Countess of Buxton was a British social activist and philanthropist.

Biography

Buxton was born in St George Hanover Square, London, the daughter of Hugh Colin Smith of Mount Clare. London and Constance Maria Josepha. She was baptised 23 July 1866 Saint Thomas Church in Portman Square, Westminster.
She married politician Sydney Charles Buxton, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1896, and had three children. She was extremely active in social work when her husband was Governor-General of South Africa from 1914–20. In 1917, their only son, 2nd Lt. Hon. Denis Buxton, was killed in action during the First World War. In Cape Town, she and her husband founded a children's hospital in memory of their only son who was killed in action in France.
When they returned from South Africa, the Buxtons settled in Newtimber Place, a Grade I listed country house in Sussex, where Lady Buxton became a Justice of the Peace. Lord Buxton died in 1934, at which point his titles became extinct. In 1935, she donated nearly 150 acres of downland at Newtimber Hill to the National Trust.
As a result of her marriage, she was styled as Viscountess of Buxton, effective 11 May 1914, and later as the Countess of Buxton, effective 8 November 1920.

Marriage and issue

She married Sydney Charles Buxton, first and last Earl of Buxton, son of Charles Buxton and Emily Mary Holland, on 7 July 1896 at Roehampton, Surrey. By his first wife, he had two sons and a daughter.
The Buxtons had three children: a twin daughter and son in 1897 and a daughter in 1910.
Two of their children predeceased them both. Denis, their only son and only heir to the titles, was killed in action in the Battle of Passchendaele while serving with the Coldstream Guards in the First World War. His twin sister, Lady Maria, died in 1923.

Honours

She was invested as a Dame Grand Cross, Order of the British Empire in 1919, in recognition for her social work.

Death

She died at Newtimber Place on 7 December 1955.