Queer Places:
36 Villa Parisio, Triq Mabel Strickland, Lija, Malta

Mabel Edeline Strickland, OBE (8 January 1899 – 29 November 1988), was an Anglo-Maltese journalist, newspaper proprietor and politician.

Strickland was the daughter of Sir Gerald Strickland, later the 4th Prime Minister of Malta, and Lady Edeline Sackville.^[1] Her mother was the eldest daughter of Reginald Sackville, 7th Earl De La Warr of Knole, Kent.^[2]

Mabel Strickland lived the most of her life at Villa Parisio in Lija, Malta.

Strickland founded a newspaper group in Malta with her father and her stepmother, Lady Strickland, DBE (Margaret, daughter of Edward Hulton). In 1935 she became editor of The Times of Malta and "Il Berqa" before taking over as Managing Director of the Group on the death of her father in 1940. The paper never missed an issue throughout the Siege of Malta in World War Two, despite taking direct hits on several occasions. She formed and led the Progressive Constitutionalist Party during the 1950s and was one of the principal political leaders of the 1950s, participating in the integration talks in 1956-57 as well as opposing independence in 1964. She was elected to the Maltese Parliament in 1962. She always fought passionately for a free and independent press and to maintain Malta's ties with Britain and the Commonwealth. On her retirement she has established the Strickland Foundation in the name of her family.

Mabel Strickland died on 29 November 1988, and is buried in the Strickland family crypt in St. Paul's Cathedral, Mdina. Her tombstone lies near that of her father.

Having never married or had children of her own, Mabel Strickland's chosen heir was her great-nephew Robert Hornyold-Strickland.^[3] However upon Strickland's death after Hornyold-Strickland left Malta, her estate became the subject of a legal conflict between Hornyold-Strickland and the Strickland Foundation.^[4]

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Strickland