Lady Sybil Grey

Canada In 1904, the Greys moved to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada where her father would serve as the Governor General of Canada until 1911.

In 1906, Lady Sybil and 15 Ottawa women cofounded the Ottawa chapter of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE), a patriotic club to support Canadian troops fighting overseas during the War. She transformed her family home in Northumberland into a hospital to look after 400 patients during the war. The hospital was dubbed "The Empire's Gift to Our Russian Allies." The involvement of the two aristocratic women were mocked, with The British Journal of Nursing (BJN) dismissing their efforts due to their lack of experience. In the winter of 1915, ships bringing hospital supplies from Britain were icebound in the Baltic Sea, but the hospital was taking in patients by February 1916 and would go on to treat 8,000 Russian soldiers. The hospital remained open even as the Russian Revolution began in 1917.

The story of how Lady Sybil became Lady Muriel's surprising replacement in Saint Petersburg was recounted by her brother-in-law Sir Lawrence Evelyn Jones many years later:

To take [Lady Muriel's] place as Commandant of the Hospital and diplomatic leader of the team, she persuaded the committee to nominate Lady Sybil Grey, an unmarried young woman of 33 with no professional qualifications, but with a knowledge of people—and of their sensitive spots—that came from seven years spent in Canada as a daughter of Lord Grey, the Governor-General. The medical and nursing journals declared the appointment to be almost scandalously inept. Little did they know. By her coolness, her wisdom, her imperturbable common sense, her charm, her warm human sympathies, and, above all, her unself-regarding devotion to duty, Sybil Grey made an outstanding success of her job... In March, 1917, for 10 days, Sybil watched, from the palace windows, the crowds, the shootings, the panics and the triumphs; heard the rumours, read the broadsheets, of the Revolution. She kept her head, flew Union Jacks, took in wounded of all parties, persuaded armed Reds to leave her in peace, and met with nothing but politeness. — L. E. Jones, The Times, 10 June 1966 She continued her nursing efforts and eventually spent nearly a year in France leading the Women’s Legion.

Lady Sybil was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire at the 1918 Birthday Honours for her efforts during the war.

Personal life In 1922, Lady Sybil married Lambert Middleton, son of Henry Nicholas Middleton of Lowood House, Melrose, and Sophia Elizabeth Meredith, daughter of Sir William Collis Meredith. Middleton served as director of the National Bank of Scotland before his death in 1941. They had one son, BBC executive Henry Lambert Middleton, and one daughter, Mary Sybil Boyd.

She died in June 1966 at her home Burley Grange in Ringwood, Hampshire. Her funeral was held at St John the Baptist Church in Burley, Hampshire, followed by a memorial at St Paul's Church in Knightsbridge, London.