The Duchess of Gloucester was born Birgitte Eva van Deurs Henriksen on 20 June 1946 in Odense, Denmark.

She is the younger daughter of the late Asger Preben Wissing Henriksen,a lawyer, and his former wife, the late Mrs Vivian van Deurs.

Birgitte van Deurs was educated at schools in Odense, and later at finishing schools in Lausanne, and Cambridge.

It was while in Cambridge that she met The Duke of Gloucester (then Prince Richard of Gloucester), who was an undergraduate reading architecture at Cambridge University at that time.

On returning to Denmark she took a three-year diploma course in Commercial and Economic Studies in Copenhagen, before arriving in London in 1971 to work as a secretary at the Royal Danish Embassy.