Addie Pryor

Adeline Pryor was the niece of Sir Thomas Halsey, a war-time battleship commander, and First-Class cricketer, while Adeline, or “Addie” as she was known, went on to become a leading alpine skier and captain of the Great Britain ladies’ team. Selected for the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics, Pryor won the Ladies Ski Championship shortly afterwards, but ten days before the start of the Olympics she sprained an ankle while competing at Gstaad, Switzerland, and was forced to miss the Games.

Having finished sixth in the British Women’s Ski Championship in 1953, Pryor won the title in 1954 and then broke a leg on her 25th birthday, while practising for that year’s World Ski Championships in Sweden. In 1955 Pryor captained the British team at the 17th Women’s International ski races and was captain of the team again at the 1956 Cortina Winter Olympics. Having competed in the giant slalom, however, and finishing a creditable 21st, she then competed on the hazardous slalom course and broke a bone in the same leg that she broke two years earlier, and was forced to miss the final event, the downhill.

Upon marrying high-ranking Army officer major-general, Sir William Raeburn, in 1960, Pryor obtained the title of Lady Adeline Raeburn. It was during William Raeburn’s time as the resident governor of the Tower of London that it was the subject of a bomb attack in 1974, The attack killed one person and wounded 41 more, many schoolchildren, who were treated by Addie at the scene. Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing but it was believed to be the work of the Provisional IRA, who were active with bombing campaigns on the British mainland at that time.