Who is Penny Mordaunt?
Penelope Mary Mordaunt was born on March 4, 1973, in Torquay, Devon. Penny was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope, the daughter of a former paratrooper. John Mordaunt, who was born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher and later as a youth worker for Hampshire Council. Jennifer,…
Penelope Mary Mordaunt was born on March 4, 1973, in Torquay, Devon. Penny was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope, the daughter of a former paratrooper. John Mordaunt, who was born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher and later as a youth worker for Hampshire Council. Jennifer, her mother, was a special education teacher at various Purbrook schools. Penny is related to Philip Snowden, the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, via her mother. Her grandmother’s cousin was the actress Dame Angela Lansbury, and Penny is so distantly related to the former Labour leader George Lansbury.
Her paternal grandpa, Edward Patrick Mordaunt, or Ned Mordaunt, was an Irish Catholic from Monamolin in County Wexford in Ireland’s south-east. After serving in the British Army with the South Irish Horse during the latter stages of World War I in 1918, Ned returned to Ireland in 1919, where he eventually joined the ‘Anti-Treaty’ Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish Civil War. Later, Ned Mordaunt traveled to the United Kingdom, where he stayed permanently and married an Englishwoman. Edward Mordaunt (1831–1917), a native of the Monamolin village and Penny’s paternal great-great-grandfather, was a leading figure in the Irish National Land League in County Wexford during the 1880s. James, Penny Mordaunt’s twin, and Edward, her younger brother, are Penny’s two brothers. Mordaunt attended the Victoryland Theatre School and Oaklands Roman Catholic Comprehensive School while receiving his education in Waterlooville, Hampshire.
