As the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth nations celebrate 70 years on the throne of their monarch Elizabeth, some Gloucester County residents may let their thoughts stray to a quiet graveyard near the Severn River.
For there, on the outskirts of Warner Hall, lie the remains of one of the queen’s many ancestors, Augustine Warner.
According to genealogical charts, Augustine Warner, the settler, was the grandfather of Mary Warner Smith. Her daughter Mildred, born in 1682, married Robert Porteus, also of Gloucester. They moved to England; seven generations later in 1900 was born their descendant Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, mother of Queen Elizabeth II, born in 1926.
A member of this family, Lady Mary, Countess of Strathmore, visited Warner Hall in 1984 and laid a wreath on the grave of Augustine Warner, who died in 1674. She said her husband was a cousin of the Queen and a nephew of the Queen Mother.
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