Our monthly client newsletter is named after a dedicated royal nanny, Charlotte Bill.

Here, Ian Trevett explains what made her so special . . . 

It can be difficult to juggle a career with being a parent, which is why so many of us now employ a nanny to help out. Time is precious, so when there is the opportunity to be with the children, why not ensure it is quality time. An extra pair of hands allows busy parents  the chance to enjoy the company of their children, but a nanny is never taken on to replace a mother’s love.
If you go back a hundred years in time it was very different. The nanny was much more than the facilitator of quality time; she was often almost a surrogate mother. In the early days of the 20th Century, children were expected to be seen and not heard, and in wealthy households public outpourings of affection were not the done thing. Often the person who would provide the love that a child craved and required was the nanny.

If aristocratic children endured distant relationships with their parents, it was even more difficult for royal children, burdened as they were with expectations of duty and protocol. King George V, who ruled from 1910 to 1936, is believed to have said that, “My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me."

It appears that this was no idle boast. His oldest son, Edward (later King Edward VIII who famously abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson) described his childhood as “wretched”. The second son Albert (who became King George VI - the father of Queen Elizabeth II) often suffered from ill health, was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears" and he developed a nervous stammer. He was forced to wear splints, which were extremely painful, to correct his knock knees, and was also made to write with his right hand although he was naturally left-handed.

All of King George V’s children adhered to the discipline and rigours of a strict upbringing, except the sixth and youngest child, Prince John, a cheeky and playful little boy who seemed to have no fear of authority. Whilst his oldest siblings feared the discipline of their father, Johnnie (as he was known) seemed almost oblivious to the regime he was supposed to adhere to. He was called ‘The Imp’ due to his love of practical jokes, such as placing carefully positioned pins on seats.

It has been speculated that this lack of awareness of the effect of his actions was due to undiagnosed autism, but there was no doubt that he suffered from violent epileptic seizures. Epilepsy and autism were not very well understood in the early 20th Century, and Johnnie’s unorthodox behaviour, slow learning and dramatic seizures created a problem for the image-conscious royalty. Aristocratic families had a policy of hiding away family members with mental health problems, and the Royal family were particularly sensitive due to the alleged madness of King George III some hundred years previous.

King George V’s coronation took place in 1911, shortly before Johnnie’s sixth birthday, but the young prince was absent from the celebrations. Rather than being sent to boarding school or naval college he was settled in at Sandringham, away from private view with his nanny Charlotte Bill, who was usually known as Lalla. By the age of 12 he was moved further away from sight to Wood Farm a modest cottage set in a secluded corner of the sprawling estate.

Charlotte Bill had originally been employed as an under-nurse by George and Mary (then the Duke and Duchess of York), but she had been shocked at the head nurse's treatment of their children, neglecting Albert to the extent that he became ill. Charlotte expressed her concerns and the head nurse was dismissed in 1897 with Charlotte taking her place. She became the most loving person in the lives of the young children. When Johnnie was sent away from the family home, Charlotte became more than just a nanny to him; she was his sole guardian and effectively became his mother figure.

Johnnie’s story was beautifully told in Stephen Poliakoff’s 2003 BBC drama, ‘The Lost Prince’. For Poliakoff, the hidden story of Johnnie was “an amazing story”. He later recalled, “It took a very long time to write. There is nothing about him in books from the time, and the research came from tiny fragments. He was obviously a rather delightful but different boy.”

Over the years, Johnnie’s exclusion from public view has been portrayed as a callous act by the Royal family, but recent evidence has painted a different picture, with Queen Mary, Johnnie’s mother, regularly visiting her son. However, when the First World War raged across Europe, Queen Mary’s duties for the war effort, meant she was unable to see her son as much as she would have liked. Poliakoff saw Queen Mary as a mother who desperately wanted to show her love for her children, but was never able to. “It seems that she was painfully inhibited in expressing her feelings”, he noted. Queen Mary’s inability to display the warmth Johnnie required was compensated by the close attention of Lalla.

Poliakoff recognised the central role of Charlotte in the story of Prince John: “She was plain speaking, forthright, and exhibited tremendous loyalty and honesty. She was capable of great love. She was the perfect person for him.”

As time went on the epilepsy became more severe, and he died as a result of a seizure in the early hours of 18 January 1919. Charlotte called the King and Queen at 5.30am, and his parents were immediately driven down to Wood Farm. The Queen wrote in her diary, “Found poor Lalla very resigned but heartbroken. Little Johnnie looked very peaceful lying there ... For him it is a great release as his malady was becoming worse as he grew older and he has thus been spared much suffering. I cannot say how grateful we feel to God for having taken him in such a peaceful way, he just slept quietly... no pain, no struggle, just peace for the poor little troubled spirit”. He was only 13.

Johnnie’s funeral at the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate was deliberately low-key, but the congregation of mourners was swelled by estate workers who had grown attached to the bubbly and likeable young prince. In Poliakoff’s ‘The Lost Prince’, Lalla is seen walking away from the funeral with Johnnie’s brother George. George, the second youngest and closest to Johnnie, was gripped by grief just like Lalla. He said to Lalla, “In some ways Johnnie was the only one of us who could ever be himself.” In his secluded home, Johnnie played with local children, listened to music and had the love of Lalla. His brothers and sisters had a far more austere and strict upbringing.

Charlotte Bill died in 1964, 45 years later, but she kept alive her love for the young prince, with a large photo of Prince John always in pride of place on her fireplace mantelpiece. She was the dedicated nanny until the end.