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Lady Pat Routledge, who has died at the years of 96, etched her presence on the British consciousness as the snobby Hyacinth Bucket.

Insisting it was "pronounced Bouquet," the character trampled over her long-suffering husband and confused neighbours in Keeping Up Appearances, one of Britain's most successful comedies in the 1990s.

Behaving like a aristocrat while living in a suburban area, Hyacinth's monstrous social-climbing plans were in the end destined to failure—while she battled to maintain her composure.

It was Dame Routledge's best-known part in a career that included her win stage honors on both sides of the Atlantic, become the star of the playwright's famous TV monologues, and become BBC1's investigative Hetty Wainthropp.

Formative Life and Career Beginnings

Catherine Pat Routledge was delivered in Birkenhead on 17 February 1929.

Her father was a haberdasher and she remembered sheltering from enemy air raids in the cellar of his store during the Second World War.

She majored in English at local the University of Liverpool and planned to become a teacher. Rather, she joined the local theatre before studying at the Bristol drama school.

Her prosperous stage career brought her from the regions to the West End, and eventually to New York, where the composer chose her to appear in his stage production 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1976.

She had already won a Tony award for her performance in Darling of the Day.

She could transition smoothly from comedies to serious drama.

She progressed from Stratford-upon-Avon, appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and then to the National Theatre in London.

At the National, her lead role in the theatre production Carousel featured her performing the rousing You'll Never Walk Alone.

She also took several minor film roles, notably in 1967's To Sir, With Love, and the comedian's funny film Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.

Her theatre and broadcast work proved her versatility and won her accolades, but it was the small screen that provided Routledge with her best-known roles.

Television Breakthrough and Memorable Roles

Initial television work included popular shows like Z Cars and Steptoe and Son.

Subsequently, among Britain's esteemed writers, the dramatist, penned a set of outstanding Talking Heads TV solos for her.

Routledge conquered her initial hesitation to perform his material and shone as A Woman of No Importance and A Lady of Letters.

She went onto play a isolated, mid-life department store assistant tipped into a relationship with a unconventional foot doctor in Bennett's Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet.

A comic performance as the exaggerated Kitty on The Victoria Wood Show led to the creation of Mrs. Bucket.

Routledge remembered being sent the scripts by the author, Roy Clarke—known for Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours.

"I had opened the script for a while at one o'clock in the morning," she said, "I went straight through and Hyacinth jumped off the script. I knew that woman, I'd met a few of that type."

Keeping Up Appearances aired for five seasons and featured four Christmas specials.

In a film, she stated that fans had numbered the royal family and the pontiff.

It became BBC Worldwide's most exported show ever and ensured Routledge was known as distant as Botswana.

For her performance on the sitcom, she was voted Britain's all-time favourite actress in 1996, but after five years in the part, she decided it was the moment for a new direction.

"I brought it to an close," she said, "and, naturally, the broadcaster didn’t care for very much."

She thought that Roy Clarke was beginning to recycle concepts and mentioned a piece of advice from the comedian, Ronnie Barker.

"He always left with audiences saying, ‘Oh, won't you do any more?’ she said, instead of fans remarking, ‘Is that still running?’"

Subsequent Work and Personal Reflections

Playing the homely but sharp detective in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates gave her continued success on TV, but she consistently called the theatre as "the real challenge."

Long after she ceased appearing regularly on television, Routledge made stage travels equally in the UK and abroad.

Whenever journalists asked the inevitable inquiry, she asked them to write the word withdrawal because, she clarified: "It isn't in my vocabulary."

She never married or had children, but told the press of two great romances in her youth, one with a married man.

"I experienced remorse and an acute sense that there would be pain," she confessed. "I guess I persuaded myself that it was all right for the time being because his union was not a living thing."

Instead, she devoted herself to her art, honoring it with the skill, dedication and devotion that were consistently respected by her colleagues.

She was critical about the BBC's choice in 2016 to revive Keeping Up Appearances, but this time set in the 1950s and featuring a younger incarnation of her character.

Challenging the network's policy of rebooting old comedies she remarked, "Why are they attempting this kind of project, they have to be desperate."

She had already clashed with the broadcaster over their decision to not commission a film she had written about the writer the children's author (she was a supporter of the literary group), which finally broadcast on another network.

Upon reaching 90, she persisted to reside peacefully in Chichester, where she busied herself raising money for the church structure.

In 2017, she became a Dame Commander of the British honors system but—unlike her character—titles did not go to her mind.

Lady Patricia often stated she credited her north of England upbringing and stable family for giving her good sense with her life and her money.

Nonetheless, she confessed that, should any extra money come her way, she'd certainly spend it on "a case of champagne"—an appreciation of the finer pleasures in existence that she had in common with her most famous creation.

"I never was theatre-obsessed," she declared. "I'm not stage-struck now. No one is as amazed than I am that I've, in fact, devoted my career pursuing this."