Antonella Reuss Newland was born in
Rome, the only child of
Major-General Sir Foster Reuss Newland KCMG CB (1862–1943) and his wife, Donna Nennella
Salazar y
Munatones. Her parents married in 1918, but divorced in 1928 after her mother, the daughter of an
Italian army
lieutenant-general,
Conte Michele Salazar (descendant of a
Spanish nobleman from the times of the Spanish presence in
Italy), left her 66-year-old father for a 27-year-old
army officer, later
Brigadier William Carr CVO DSO. Newland married a distant relative,
Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian, at the
Brompton Oratory on 30 April 1943; he was then serving as a
lieutenant in the
Scots Guards. The couple spent most of their married life at
Monteviot House and its surrounding estate near
Jedburgh in the
Scottish Borders. The Kerrs also owned
Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire but they later retired to
Ferniehirst Castle in Roxburghshire after dividing the other
estates between their sons. The couple had two sons and four daughters. Her husband died on 11 October 2004, being succeeded by their elder son,
Conservative politician
Michael, Earl of Ancram. The younger son is
Lord Ralph Kerr. Their eldest daughter, Lady Mary Kerr, was a
folksinger and won a silver medal in
skiing at the
1969 British Commonwealth Games, and later married
Charles von Westenholz. Their second daughter, Lady Cecil Kerr, married
Donald Cameron of Lochiel, the XXVII and present Chief of
Clan Cameron. The other daughters married the
heirs of the
Duke of Grafton and the
Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry:
Clare Kerr married
James FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, and
Lady Elizabeth Kerr married
Richard Scott, Earl of Dalkeith, the 10th and present Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. Lady Lothian pursued her own independent career as an author, broadcaster and journalist. She was a columnist with the
Scottish Daily Express from 1960 to 1975. She was elected a
fellow of the
Institute of Journalists and won the
Templeton Award in 1992. With
Odette Hallowes and Lady Georgina Coleridge she founded the annual
Women of the Year Lunches at the
Savoy Hotel in 1955, in aid of the
Greater London Fund for the Blind and other charities. She was vice-president of the
Royal College of Nursing from 1960 to 1980 as well as being a patron of the
National Council of Women of Great Britain and the
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Lady Lothian lost an eye in 1970 as a result of cancer, afterwards using a black
eye patch. She was appointed an
OBE in 1997 "for services to women and blind people" and a
Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great in 2002. Lady Lothian interviewed the Soviet cosmonaut
Valentina Tereshkova for her book ''
Valentina: First Woman in Space. ==Bibliography==