Socialite. She was the youngest of three children of Australian parents Harry Chisholm and his wife Margaret, née Mackellar. She was educated at home. When World War I broke out, she went with her mother to Egypt in 1915, planning to nurse soldiers and to see her brother John who was serving with the Australian Imperial Force. She met Francis Edward Scudamore St Clair-Erskine, Lord Loughborough, son of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn. They married at the British Consulate, Cairo, on 27 December 1915. They went to England in 1916 and were to have two sons. The marriage suffered financial hardship from Loughborough's inveterate gambling and they divorced in Edinburgh in 1926. In London in the 1920s Sheila became a member of the Prince of Wales's set, also known as 'The Darlings'. In November 1928 she married 26-year-old Sir John Charles Peniston ('Buffles') Milbanke, 11th baronet, of Halnaby, Yorkshire. This marriage also ended in divorce. On 29 October 1954 at the register office, St Marylebone, she married Dimitri Alexandrovitch Romanoff, a Russian prince and a descendant of Tsar Nicholas I. They lived modestly at Belgravia. In 1967 they came to Australia, her first visit home since flying to Sydney in 1937 to see her mother. Interviewed by the press on the coincidence of all her husbands being titled, Sheila said: 'I married them all for love. None of them ever had any money'. Princess Dimitri was buried with Episcopal rites in Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh, where there is a memorial window to her younger son who had been killed on active service with the Royal Air Force in 1939. Her elder son, who succeeded as 6th Earl of Rosslyn, survived her.
(bio by C Smith)
(bio by C Smith)
Socialite. She was the youngest of three children of Australian parents Harry Chisholm and his wife Margaret, née Mackellar. She was educated at home. When World War I broke out, she went with her mother to Egypt in 1915, planning to nurse soldiers and to see her brother John who was serving with the Australian Imperial Force. She met Francis Edward Scudamore St Clair-Erskine, Lord Loughborough, son of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn. They married at the British Consulate, Cairo, on 27 December 1915. They went to England in 1916 and were to have two sons. The marriage suffered financial hardship from Loughborough's inveterate gambling and they divorced in Edinburgh in 1926. In London in the 1920s Sheila became a member of the Prince of Wales's set, also known as 'The Darlings'. In November 1928 she married 26-year-old Sir John Charles Peniston ('Buffles') Milbanke, 11th baronet, of Halnaby, Yorkshire. This marriage also ended in divorce. On 29 October 1954 at the register office, St Marylebone, she married Dimitri Alexandrovitch Romanoff, a Russian prince and a descendant of Tsar Nicholas I. They lived modestly at Belgravia. In 1967 they came to Australia, her first visit home since flying to Sydney in 1937 to see her mother. Interviewed by the press on the coincidence of all her husbands being titled, Sheila said: 'I married them all for love. None of them ever had any money'. Princess Dimitri was buried with Episcopal rites in Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh, where there is a memorial window to her younger son who had been killed on active service with the Royal Air Force in 1939. Her elder son, who succeeded as 6th Earl of Rosslyn, survived her.
(bio by C Smith)
(bio by C Smith)
Inscription
Margaret Sheila Mackellar
Princess Dimitri
Beloved Wife of
H.H. Prince Dimitri of Russia
and Mother of
The 6th Earl of Rosslyn
1898-1969
In Ever Loving Memory
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
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