Catherine,
Princess of Wales

She is the woman the British press has tracked through every public window for fifteen years. The girl from Berkshire who met a future king at university and stepped from the family-business spreadsheet into a job no application form covers. The face on the front pages, then the cover of *Vogue*, then a hospital recovery photograph that ran on every continent.

Arc

She read Art History at St Andrews from 2001 to 2005, where she met William. Accessories buyer at Jigsaw followed, then project work for Party Pieces, the family business her parents had built. The wedding at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011 was watched by an estimated two billion people. She took on patronages slowly, then settled on early childhood, mental health, sport, and the arts. Heads Together arrived in April 2016. The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood opened in 2021. Together at Christmas, the Westminster Abbey carol service, has run every year since. She became Princess of Wales on 9 September 2022. A cancer diagnosis was disclosed in March 2024; remission was confirmed in January 2025.

Why she’s in the library

A face the British public has parsed at every state event of the past fifteen years. High forehead, dark almond eyes, a long neck that holds in a tiara. Studio portrait, hospital steps, balcony lens — the geometry stays consistent. The most-photographed woman in the United Kingdom. A stable anchor for the index.