Margaret “Bobo” MacDonald, Nanny, Dresser, and Confidante of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2021

Margaret MacDonald served Queen Elizabeth II for sixty-seven years, first as a nursemaid beginning in Elizabeth’s infancy and then as her dresser who looked after her clothes and jewelry and helped style her appearance. A constant presence in Elizabeth’s life from an early age, Margaret was also Elizabeth’s confidante and friend. Born in 1904, Margaret MacDonald was the Scots-born daughter of a railway worker. She grew up in a three-room railway company cottage in Black Isle, a peninsula north of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. Margaret first worked as an apprentice chambermaid in a modest hotel. In 1926, when Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) was born, she joined the household of the Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, later The Queen Mother) as a nursemaid.

Baby Elizabeth’s staff also included Clara Cooper Knight known as Allah, a traditional English nanny. Margaret, as nursemaid, would often play hide and seek with the toddler Elizabeth in the gardens calling, “Boo!” Elizabeth would clap her hands and answer “Boo! Boo!” and that is how Margaret got the name Bobo. She was called Bobo for the rest of her life and she was the only person outside the immediate royal family permitted to call Elizabeth by her childhood name Lilibet.

When Princess Margaret was born in 1930, Allah and Bobo’s younger sister Ruby MacDonald, who later became Princess Margaret’s dresser, took care of the new princess. Bobo took charge of Elizabeth and moved into her room to give her a stronger sense of security. Elizabeth would share a room with Bobo until she was thirteen-years-old and Bobo developed a devotion to Elizabeth that would last until she died in 1993. From 1930 onward, Bobo was closer to Elizabeth than anyone outside her family.

When Princess Elizabeth got older, Bobo was, officially, her dresser. She looked after Elizabeth’s clothes and jewelry and dealt with the royal dressmakers Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies, and Ian Thomas. Unofficially, Bobo looked after Elizabeth. For sixty-seven years, Bobo loved, protected, and respected Elizabeth. She accompanied Elizabeth on her honeymoon and all her tours and lived in style at Buckingham Palace. Into her 80s, Bobo would still wake Elizabeth with a cup of tea, run her bath, and lay out her clothes for the day. In 1986, Queen Elizabeth II made Bobo a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order.

In her later years, Bobo held a unique position in Buckingham Palace. She had her own suite, no duties, and enjoyed a closer personal friendship with Queen Elizabeth II than nearly anyone else, including some of the members of the royal family.

On September 22, 1993, Margaret MacDonald, Queen Elizabeth’s dear Bobo, died in her suite at Buckingham Palace at the age of 89. Bobo, who never married, was survived by her sister Ruby, who had been a member of the royal household since 1930. Bobo’s funeral was held on September 30, 1993, at The Queen’s Chapel at St. James’ Palace in London, England, on Marlborough Road, across from St. James’ Palace. The Queen’s Chapel was originally built as a Roman Catholic chapel for Queen Henrietta Maria, the French Catholic wife of King Charles I.

Embed from Getty Images 
Queen Elizabeth II after the funeral service for Margaret (Bobo) MacDonald

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