Just three weeks after her most recent visit home to Australia, Queen Mary of Denmark’s father, Professor John Donaldson, has died in Hobart aged 84.

“My heart is heavy, and my thoughts are grey,” the Tasmania-born royal said in a statement released via the Danish royal family on Sunday.

The announcement was accompanied by a black and white portrait taken by Queen Mary on March 23, 2026.

“My beloved father has passed away. But I know that when the grief settles, the memories will brighten my day, and what will remain strongest is love and gratitude for everything he gave me and taught me.”

Queen Mary’s most recent royal tour with her husband King Frederik was the couple’s first official visit to Australia since becoming king and queen in 2024.

After official tour events wrapped up on March 19 in Hobart, the royals spent a number of days in her former home town, sharing what Mary called “precious” time with her father.

Donaldson is survived by his wife, four children and 12 grandchildren – including Crown Prince Christian, who will one day inherit the Danish throne from his parents.

Born in Scotland on September 5, 1941, Donaldson – a mathematician – migrated to Australia with his wife, Henrietta ‘Etta’ Donaldson, in 1963 after earning his degree at the University of Edinburgh.

John Donaldson and the future Queen Mary of Denmark, at her wedding in 2004.© Getty Images

The couple settled in Hobart, and in 1972 welcomed their third child, Mary Elizabeth, the younger sister of Jane, Patricia and older sibling to brother John.

Fresh from receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Tasmania in 1968, Professor Donaldson joined its mathematics department as a lecturer. He went on to be appointed dean of the science faculty, which he held until his retirement in 2003.

Donaldson’s academic career also included visiting professorships at several institutions across Houston, Montreal and Oxford.

When Mary was 26, her mother Etta died from complications following heart surgery, aged 55.

“I would have liked to have spent more time with her,” Mary said during a 2015 interview with a Danish broadcaster.

“I felt alone in my pain … As if nobody understood what I was going through and I had come to a standstill while the whole world around me kept moving forwards.”

In 2001, Donaldson married his second wife, English crime novelist Susan Moody.

Four years after his daughter was introduced to the then-Crown Prince of Denmark during a chance encounter at a Sydney pub, the image of Donaldson walking Mary down the aisle of Copenhagen Cathedral while wearing a traditional Scottish kilt beamed around the world.

King Frederik began his wedding day speech by addressing his new father-in-law directly, saying: “Dear John, what a privilege, what a thrill, what an extraordinary feeling of happiness you have created in me. One might say Mary also belongs to you — but as of today, she belongs to me and I belong to her.”

A private memorial service will be held at a later date.