Princess Sophia was born in Grosvenor Street,
Mayfair. Her father was
Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the third son of
The Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales. Her mother, the Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh, born
Maria Walpole, was the illegitimate daughter of
Sir Edward Walpole. She was privately baptized in a drawing room at her parents' home in
Mayfair,
Gloucester House, on 26 June 1773, by
Charles Moss,
Bishop of St David's. She had three godparents:
The Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, her paternal uncle; the
Duchess of Cumberland and Strathearn, her aunt by marriage; and the
Queen of Denmark and Norway, her paternal aunt, who was represented by a proxy.
George III had been asked to stand as godfather, but he declined, upset by his brother's marriage to Maria Walpole, a commoner. Sophia was considered as a potential bride for her first cousin
Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews (who later ruled as King William IV), but she expressed no enthusiasm for the match. She lived at Gloucester Lodge on the
Gloucester Road from about 1805 and remained there after her mother's death in 1807, but by 1809 she had sold the villa to
George Canning. She also lived at New Lodge in
Winkfield, near
Windsor in
Berkshire. In 1811, Sophia visited the
Royal Yacht Squadron, at
Northwood on the
Isle of Wight with her brother the Duke of Gloucester: the Gloucester Hotel, by the Parade, was named in their honour. From 1816, Sophia held the office of Ranger of
Greenwich Park and had a home at the
Ranger's House,
Blackheath. Sophia was an early patron of the new seaside town of
St Leonard's on Sea, where she stayed at Gloucester Lodge on Quarry Hill in 1831. The building was formerly named the Castellated Villa, but was renamed in her honour. Sophia died at the Ranger's House, Blackheath, on 29 November 1844, unmarried. She was buried in
St George's Chapel, Windsor. ==Ancestry==