Mrs. Pack

Mrs. Pack, who died in 1694, was a wet nurse to the infant William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of the future Queen Anne, born in 1689. When the sickly infant failed to thrive and three earlier wet nurses were judged unsatisfactory, country women came to Hampton Court Palace, among them Mrs. Pack, a Quaker from Kingston Wick, who was sent in to feed the child by Prince George of Denmark; the baby recovered. Believed indispensable to the boy's health, she was given entire control of the nursery wing at Craven House in Kensington and held great power in the household, though she never won the boy's affection and died when he was five. Her son Joel Pack, who came with her to Hampton Court, was fostered with the royal family and became a clerk to the Admiralty. The author Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy considered her a prototype of the English nanny.