Photo: Britain's oldest person dies aged 114

Britain’s oldest person and the last to be born in the reign of Queen Victoria has died at the age of 114.

She lived through six monarchs, 22 prime ministers and two world wars and has seen the invention of the radio, the television, the computer and the internet.

In 2005, she moved into the Water Royd House nursing home in Barnsley, where she died on Thursday. Mrs Lang is survived by a 91-year-old daughter.

Ethel Lang when she was 20

She became the UK’s oldest person after Londoner Grace Jones died aged 113 in 2013.
Mrs Lang was one of six girls and left school at 13 to work in a shirt factory.

She married her husband, William, in 1922, and they had a daughter together, Margaret. Mr Lang died in 1988.

The couple’s daughter Margaret Walker said one of her aunts lived to the age of 104.

Margaret Bates, William Lang, and Ethel Lang aged 27 in 1927

‘She was a lovely mother, I’ve had her a very long time. I’ve been a very lucky person,’ said her daughter.

Mrs Walker said her mother went blind at the age of 85 but still enjoyed listening to snooker.

‘She loved the snooker and loved [player] Jimmy White. She was always backing him,’ she said.

Speaking to the BBC on her 108th birthday, Mrs Lang said it was the war years that stuck in her memory.

Margaret Bates aged 91, daughter of Ethel Lang

She said: ‘On a Sunday evening we used to have friends come over. We would black everything out and get around the piano and have a sing-song.’

According to a list of super-centenarians maintained by the Gerontology Research Group, Gladys Hooper, 111, of the Isle of Wight, is now Britain’s oldest resident. She will be 112 on Sunday.

The oldest person in the world is thought to be Misao Okawa, a Japanese woman who celebrated her 116th birthday last March.