Governess - Notable Governesses

Notable Governesses

• Katherine Swynford, who was governess to the children of John of Gaunt, and later became his mistress, the mother of his Beaufort children, and his duchess. She was a great-great grandmother of Henry VII of England through his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort.
• Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, governess to Princess Mary, later Queen Mary I of England. They were also distant cousins.
• Katherine Ashley, governess to Queen Elizabeth I of England.
• Madame de Maintenon, who became the last mistress of Louis XIV of France, gained entry to his inner circle as governess to his illegitimate offspring, the children of Madame de Montespan.
• Baroness Louise Lehzen and Charlotte Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, Queen Victoria's governesses.
• Anne Sullivan, the so-called Miracle Worker, who educated the remarkable deaf and blind girl Helen Keller.
• Anna Leonowens, governess in what is now Thailand, whose memoir Anna and the King of Siam inspired the musical drama The King and I
• Marion Crawford ("Crawfie"), governess of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.
• Marie Curie, worked as a governess in multiple households to fund her education, later became one of the most influential women in the history of science.
• Reginald Fleming Johnston, Puyi's Scottish tutor from 1919 to 1924, published Twilight in the Forbidden City in 1934.
• Maria Von Trapp, governess to the Von Trapp children in "The Sound of Music"