Her mother was Princess Helena, the fifth child and third daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

[citation needed] In July 1917, King George V changed the name of the British royal family to the House of Windsor.

As its president, she visited British troops in France and obtained the permission of the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, to arrange entertainments for them.

Between the world wars, she and her sister, Princess Marie Louise, were enthusiastic patrons of music at Schomberg House, their London residence.

Other royal mourners included Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven, Lady Patricia Ramsay and her son Captain Alexander Ramsay.

[12] As a male-line granddaughter of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Helena Victoria would have been styled Serene Highness (Durchlaucht).

In June 1917, a notice appeared in the Court Circular that a Royal Warrant was to be prepared by George V dispensing with his cousins' use of the "Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg" part of their titles.