Sovereign Grand Commander 

Hermione was born in what was then the Kingdom of South Africa on 14th August 1952 in the first few months of Queen Elizabeth’s II reign. After school she studied as a nurse, first in Cape Town and then at Johannesburg General Hospital, qualifying on 17th May 1974 as a General Nurse (Dipl.N). She met and married Hugh on 21st August 1977 and they returned to the United Kingdom in 1979. 

 

She subsequently trained and qualified as a Registered Sick Children’s Nurse at Great Ormond Street hospital on 12th November 1981 and subsequently as a midwife in 1989. She holds a BsC (Hons) from The University of Manchester and an LTHE from Plymouth University as well as a CMS from Cambridge. She was Lecturer /Practitioner at Plymouth University/Yeovil Hospital from 1998-2002 when she was head hunted for the position of Lead Nurse Quality of Care at Birmingham Children’s Hospital where she remained until her retirement.  

 

 

As lead nurse she lead on new multi-disciplinary initiatives, teaching and coaching mentoring of new staff and students and debriefing after major incident events. She still keeps her hand in as a bank staff nurse at Derby Hospital. 

 

Her maiden name was Hummel and her father’s side of the family came from Latvia and Lithuania, then part of Imperial Russia. Hermione’s father fought throughout the 2nd. World War with the Transvaal Horse Artillery (THA) (No longer horsed), which was part of the South African Brigade attached to the 8th Army. He fought throughout the North African and Italian Campaigns, being captured at the battle of Monte Cassino and remained a prisoner until Italy was liberated. 

 

 

On her Mother’s side Hermione descends from Fabian von Luther, who was ennobled by the Emperor Sigismund in 1413, via his great-great-grandson, Jacob von Luther. Jacob’s descendants went to the Cape Colony c. 1830 (Now part of South Africa) and married into the East Family becoming Luther-East. This family in turn married into the Joseph family, who held the Royal Warrant as Jewellers to the Governor of the Cape Colony. Hermione still has a piece of Jewellery made for the family in 1832 in her possession. The original Arms were “Azure an unstrung crossbow between 2 roses Argent”. At some time, because descent was via a junior branch, the senior branch having no legitimate heirs, the field of the Arms was changed to Gules (Red), which it remains to this day. Hermione is the last Freifräulein von Luther and when she dies the title will cease. However Hugh has permission for their Grandchildren to quarter the Arms with his so that the Arms at least will continue.