Pippa Middleton was born in 1983,she is the second of the three children of Michael Middleton (born 1949), at the time a British Airways flight dispatcher, by his marriage in 1980 at Dorney to Carole Goldsmith (born 1955), a former flight attendant.
Through Olivia Lupton, her ancestors include The Rev. Thomas Davis, a Church of England hymn-writer. Carole Middleton's mother's family were labourers and miners from County Durham. The third child of the family is James William Middleton (born 1987), now a business man.
Her mother set up 'Party Pieces', a company which began by making party bags and which now sells party supplies and decorations by mail order. By 1995 the firm, run by both parents, was so successful that it moved into a range of farm buildings at Ashampstead Common.
Like her sister, Middleton was initially educated at St Andrew's School, Pangbourne, then at Downe House, a girls' boarding school in Cold Ash, and finally at Marlborough College, Wiltshire. She then followed her sister to higher education in Scotland, attending the University of Edinburgh to study English literature.