Ask a group of youngsters about their career ambitions and there won’t be many who opt for being a Lord Lieutenant. The post is unpaid, for a start. And they may not have even heard of it.

Claire Hensman never imagined she would find herself in the post either – let alone in Cumbria.

She was born in Somerset 67 years ago, grew up there, studied law in London and then worked in banking and investments in the capital.

But for three years now Claire has been the Lord Lieutenant for Cumbria – the Queen’s representative in the county.

It means arranging royal visits, checking the list of those put forward for honours such as OBEs and MBEs – and sometimes presenting them – and supporting local voluntary activity, businesses and the armed forces.

And today she’s in London with the other 97 Lord Lieutenants, for the service marking Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday at St Paul’s Cathedral.

It’s a high profile job and being appointed, she says, was “a great honour and extraordinary surprise”.

But she adds: “I can’t say anything was planned. They just came up. I happened to be in the right place and at the right age.”

Her involvement in many of the voluntary bodies in Cumbria gave her the experience and knowledge of the county to take on the role. But neither Lord Lieutenant nor any other career had presented itself in her younger days.

Claire’s parents, and one of her brothers, were doctors and her other brother was a lawyer, so there was a family tradition of going into the educated professions. “I suppose there was a bit of pressure there,” she reflects.

Studying law at the London School of Economics was in keeping with that tradition. But this was the late 1960s and the LSE was a hotbed for student protests at the time.

In 1969 activists closed the entire school for three weeks, and Claire recalls: “The whole place was in anarchy – I found it really difficult to concentrate. I wasn’t very good at it, to be honest. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

“But there were so many barriers in your way and that made it tough for a less than enthusiastic student.

“That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.”

After a year working in Greece and Switzerland she returned to London and became an investment analyst. But in the 1970s sexism was still prevalent in many workplaces.

One company she worked for was M&G, and she remembers: “I was the first woman they employed who wasn’t a secretary.”

A bigger job came with NM Rothschild, though it was clear she wasn’t going to rise to a higher position there.

“I was 28 and married and discrimination was rampant. Glass ceilings were pretty thick.”

“But that was the culture. I probably wouldn’t have employed me, given the times.”

In 1980 Claire and her husband Peter moved to Cumbria, when Peter’s grandfather invited him to join the family firm. It ran tourist attractions such as the La’al Ratty railway and Ullswater Steamers.

They had two daughters and one son, all grown up now, and three grandchildren so far.

One daughter, Lucinda, is an environmental consultant and the other, Joanna, is a solicitor. Their son, Roger, works for an environmental company and lives in Madrid, where his wife is a diplomat.

Claire looked after the children, but it wasn’t long before she found herself involved in voluntary groups.

The Bendrigg Trust, which took on young offenders to help run activities for disabled people, needed more trustees and Claire became one.

“It was a real eye-opener to see the young offenders,” she says. “You know you’ve broken through when they come back as volunteers.”

That led to another position, as a director of the old Westmorland Hospital Trust, until the powers-that-be decided it was too small to be viable.

“I think we ran rather a good trust,” she argues. “We were the only one that made a surplus.”

Her experience led to another invitation, to join the council of Lancaster University – and her work there won her an honorary fellowship.

But she’s modest about it. “Because I wasn’t working, I was available to sit on sub-committees. I had time to devote to it.”

And then the University of Cumbria was looking for governors.

She has high praise for it. “There’s quite a lot of research going on. The school of forestry has an international reputation.”

There are also its career-oriented courses. “People who are paramedics or police officers or nurses need degrees. That’s what the professional bodies want.”

Since Anglo-Saxon times, High Sheriffs have been appointed to protect High Court judges “It’s the oldest secular office in the land,” Claire explains.


Lord Lieutenant Claire Hensman By 2007, when she was made one, the role had changed. They lend support to the voluntary sector and often help charities working with vulnerable people, and it was through this that Claire got involved with the Shannon Trust, which tackles the problem of illiteracy among prisoners.

“Around 25 per cent of people in prison can’t read and write properly,” she says. “It’s horrific.”

And it’s one of the causes of crime. “If you can’t read, how are you going to get a job? Prisoners aren’t going to confess that they can’t read, for fear of getting bullied.”

She helped set up literacy programmes where prisoners who can read act as mentors for those who can’t. “We had 11 mentors and 30 learners.”

The role of Lord Lieutenant has also changed a lot over time. They were first created by Henry VIII when he needed people across the country with the power to muster armies, though Claire says that by the time she took on the role, in 2013, that power had been removed.

She’s the first woman to hold the post in Cumbria – breaking the glass ceiling she’d encountered in the world of banking 40 years earlier.

Arranging royal visits is a big part of it nowadays and she receives far more requests for them than she can ever accommodate. All the principal family members except Prince Edward and the Duke of York have visited during Claire’s time. The Prince of Wales, she notes, is in particular demand in Cumbria.

The first visit she arranged was one from Prince Charles. “We had to co-ordinate it with the police, security and the royal household. It was all programmed every five minutes by five minutes.”

Quite often a visit is organised so that the visitor can fit in as many places as possible. Princess Anne is patron of the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) and Save The Children, and opened The Cumberland News’ Newspaper House in 1972 – so her visit last year, to mark 200th anniversary of The Cumberland News, took in Newspaper House once again, the Save the Children shop in Carlisle and a riding centre used by RDA.

When a royal visitor meets a group of people, the group are usually arranged in a horseshoe shape.

“It’s so that they are not just talking to one person – in case that person freezes,” she explains. “It’s easier to get a conversation going. But they are very good at putting people at their ease. They are quite relaxed, and they are ‘people’ people.”

Lord Lieutenants normally retire at 75, so Claire could have another eight years in the role, and plans to serve the full term if she can.

“It’s a great job,” she says. “It’s busier than I thought it was going to be, and I do spend quite a lot of time travelling.”

Yet that has brought home to her, all over again, the diversity of the county she moved to 36 years ago and now represents – the facts that it’s more than lakes and daffodils.

“There’s Barrow, Sellafield, Lanercost, Spadeadam, Ulverston – the contrasts in Cumbria are amazing. I’ve discovered all sorts of beautiful places.”