A Relationship with Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught
For the
Durnford children to be involved with the children of the Duke of Connaught,
the son of Queen Victoria, there had to be a link.
No doubt
that link originated in the Corps of the Royal Engineers, where, in 1868,
Prince Arthur was commissioned. Later they both were at Aldershot.
The young prince
lived in an independent establishment with his governor at Ranger's House,
Greenwich, and, on the death of the prince consort in 1861, Elphinstone took an increasingly paternal role
in his charge's life. He was influential in leading the prince to acquire an
interest in and appreciation of the arts and sciences, with the result
that Arthur was more cultivated than either of
his elder brothers, the prince of Wales and the duke of Edinburgh.
Prince
Arthur's formal
military training began on 11 February 1867 when he entered the Royal Military
Academy at Woolwich. In 1868 he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers and was subsequently posted to the
various arms of the service to give him the broad qualification which might
later be useful if, as was expected, he were to succeed the duke of Cambridge as commander-in-chief.
His first service abroad was
from 1869 to 1870, in Canada with the rifle brigade. On 24 May 1874, he was created duke of Connaught and of Strathearn, and earl of Sussex, and was subsequently known by his first title. In 1876 he was promoted
lieutenant-colonel and placed in command of the 1st battalion of the rifle brigade.
From 1880 to 1883, as a
major-general, he commanded the infantry brigade at Aldershot. His promotion had been
accelerated, but he was to show that it had not outstripped his competence. In
1882 he commanded the brigade of guards during the Egyptian campaign, which culminated in Wolseley's brilliant victory at Tell
al-Kebir against Arabi Pasha's much larger, well-entrenched, and powerfully gunned
army. Connaught's brigade was in the second line, but
it, and he personally, came under fire during the engagement. He had succeeded
in bringing his men to the right place at the right time after an adventurous
night march in which much might have gone wrong. Wolseley declared that he had 'taken more care of his men and is more
active in the discharge of his duties than any of the generals now with me'.
Thus the duke acquitted himself well in battle and became the last British
prince to command a significant formation in action.
During the pacification of
Egypt, Connaught was governor of Cairo, but he had
little taste for that work and was glad in 1883 to embark on service in India,
first as a divisional commander and then, from 1886 until 1890, as
commander-in-chief of the Bombay army.
His area of responsibility extended from Bombay to Aden, but his wish to
modernize the Indian armies and to reduce the social gap between the British
and the Indian officers and troops was not encouraged by the duke of Cambridge nor, indeed, by almost anyone other
than the queen.
While in India, he travelled
extensively and strenuously throughout the subcontinent carrying out military
inspections, and on diplomatic and imperial missions. His interests ranged from
improving the efficiency of his forces to concern for the status of women in
what he considered a primitive form of society.
In these roles, Connaught excelled and, both before and after
he was in India, he discharged them in most quarters of the globe, including
the United States, China, Japan, many of the British dominions and colonies,
and most of the European countries. He was an excellent public speaker, a
welcoming host, and an attentive guest, who found himself more or less at ease
with the bey of
Tunis, President Taft of the United States, the emperor of Japan, the emperor of Austria, and even Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, his nephew.
On 13 March 1879 Connaught had married Princess Louise Margaret
Alexandra Victoria Agnes of Prussia (1860–1917), the third daughter of Prince Frederick Charles of
Prussiaand the
great-niece of William I of Germany.
They had three children; the
eldest, Margaret (1882–1920), married the crown prince of Sweden, and had four sons and a daughter; the
only son, Arthur (1883–1938), was governor-general of South Africa;
and the younger daughter abdicated her royal style in 1919 to become Lady Patricia Ramsay (1886–1974). The Connaughts' marriage was happy and enduring, notwithstanding the
duke's affection for Léonie Leslie, the sister of Lady Randolph Churchill, which was shared by his wife.
In 1902 Connaught was promoted field marshal and in
1904 was selected to fill the new post of inspector-general of the forces. The
declared purpose of this innovation (which arose from the so-called Esher army reforms), was to provide the
newly created army council with eyes and ears; they would sit in their offices and
committee rooms and the inspector-general would go out and report what was
happening on the ground. Connaught travelled
widely among the troops in the United Kingdom and those in the overseas
garrisons and he reported as he found, mostly to the effect that the reforms
were eyewash. This did not appeal to the army council, nor to the secretary of state for war, and it was decided
that the duke, who was too prestigious to be sacked, should be exported.
He was, much against his own
wish and only on the insistence of his brother, Edward VII, sent to Malta as commander-in-chief and
high commissioner in the Mediterranean. Here he found himself, as he had
predicted (and quoting his own description), no more than a fifth wheel on the
coach; an impediment to, rather than an enhancement of, its efficiency. Much to
the annoyance of the king and R. B. Haldane, the secretary of state for war, he resigned in 1909 and
so ended his active military service.
Ironically, however, this
change brought Connaught towards
the summit of his useful career. Edward VII decided that the duke should be governor-general of Canada
and to this proposal there was an enthusiastic response from both sides of the
Atlantic. Connaught was
sworn in as governor-general in Quebec on 13 October 1911. During the next five
years, he travelled to every part of the dominion. There was some reserve in
French Canada, but in most places he was well-received and he became much
better known than any of his predecessors. He established an informal system
for seeing the prime minister, Robert Borden, and the ministers of his Conservative government, which
had just won a general election.
At first, he thought highly of
them all, but he soon came to believe that his original impression of healthy
enthusiasm and vigour in the minister for militia and defence, Sam Hughes, was more correctly interpreted as
self-conceit inflated by an unbalanced mind. This raised very serious issues
after the outbreak of war in 1914: with his own army experience, the duke
inevitably had strong opinions on military matters, and, despite his
constitutional position, he came into conflict with Hughes.
The latter insisted on the
Canadian troops being equipped with the Canadian-made Ross rifle, and continued
to do so after conclusive evidence had been assembled showing that the rifle
often jammed after a few rounds when exposed to the conditions of the
battlefield. He talked of raising vast Canadian armies of a million men,
which Connaught believed would bleed the dominion
white, and he turned a blind eye to the recruitment of Americans while the
United States was still neutral, contrary to assurances given to the American
president by the governor-general. Hughes was also in close accord with Colonel Wesley Allison, long suspected and eventually unmasked
as one of the most disagreeable of a number of fraudulent arms profiteers.
Thinking that Hughes was
a danger to Canada, Connaught pressed Borden to drop him. Borden was probably of the same opinion,
but it was not until after the duke had left Canada that he acted on it.
Connaught's attitude has been portrayed as an
unconstitutional vendetta, but had he left Sam Hughes to himself, the governor-general would have been failing in
his duty to advise, warn, and encourage. When he left Canada in October 1916,
there were widespread expressions of regret, not the least from Borden himself.
After Canada, Connaught did not hold any public appointment,
but he continued to fulfil public engagements, the most important of which took
him in 1921 to India, where he opened the new chamber of princes, the central legislative assembly, and
the council of state.
Connaught lived on until 1942, dividing his
time between Clarence House in London and Bagshot Park, Surrey, which had been
built for him between 1876 and 1879. From 1921 to 1934 he also maintained a
villa, Les Bruyères, at St Jean Cap Ferrat, in France, where his garden was
regularly opened to members of the navy visiting Villefranche.
The duke had received every
order which it had been in the power of his mother to bestow, and had received
further decorations from Edward VII and George V, and from many foreign powers. He
presided over many organizations, including the Royal Society of Arts, the Boy Scouts' Association, and the united lodge of freemasons, and
was colonel of three, and colonel-in-chief of nineteen, army regiments. His
later years were saddened by the loss of his wife in 1917 and by the death of
his elder daughter in 1920 and of his only son in 1938.
He died at the age of
ninety-one on 16 January 1942 at Bagshot Park and was buried at Frogmore.
Oxford DNB Noble Frankland
Despite
the privileges of his rank, the Duke had a reputation as a straightforward,
hard-working soldier, known for his concern for the welfare of his men, with no
time for pettiness or insincerity. In 1879 Prince Arthur married Princess
Louise Margaret of Prussia. He was succeeded very briefly by his grandson,
after which his titles became extinct.
Photograph taken by Royal Engineers photographer during the
Abyssinian Campaign in 1868-9.
Soldiers in service dress standing in lines in front of tents; officer on horse in front; rocky cliffs rise behind; viewed over grassy ground.
Soldiers in service dress standing in lines in front of tents; officer on horse in front; rocky cliffs rise behind; viewed over grassy ground.
Provenance From an album
compiled and owned by Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught (1850-1942)
Victoria, Ethel and Gwen, and their brother
Col Guy Durnford and his wife were invited to view the gifts.
He served as the Governor General of Canada, the tenth since Canadian Confederation and the only British prince to do so. In 1910 he was appointed Grand Prior of the Order of St John and held this position until 1939.
Arthur was educated by private tutors before entering the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich at the age of 16. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the British Army, where he served for some 40 years, seeing service in various parts of the British Empire. During this time he was also created a royal duke, becoming the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, as well as the Earl of Sussex. In 1911, he was appointed as Governor General of Canada, replacing the Earl Grey as viceroy. He occupied this post until he was succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire in 1916. He acted as the King's, and thus the Canadian Commander-in-Chief's, representative through the first years of the First World War.
After the end of his viceregal tenure, Arthur returned to the United Kingdom and there, as well as in India, performed various royal duties, while also again taking up military duties. Though he retired from public life in 1928, he continued to make his presence known in the army well into the Second World War, before his death in 1942. He was Queen Victoria's last surviving son.
It was at an early age that Arthur developed an interest in the army, and in 1866 he followed through on his military ambitions by enrolling at the Royal Military College at Woolwich, from where he graduated two years later and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers on 18 June 1868. The Prince transferred to the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 2 November 1868 and, on 2 August 1869, to the Rifle Brigade, his father's own regiment, after which he conducted a long and distinguished career as an army officer, including service in South Africa, Canada in 1869, Ireland, Egypt in 1882, and in India from 1886 to 1890.
The Duke and Duchess of Connaught with their children in 1893
Princess Patricia of Connaught (Victoria Patricia Helena Elizabeth; later Lady Patricia Ramsay;[ 17 March 1886 – 12 January 1974) was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Upon her marriage to Alexander Ramsay, she relinquished her title of a British princess and the style of Royal Highness
Prince Arthur of Connaught KG KT GCMG GCVO GCStJ CB PC (Arthur Frederick Patrick Albert; 13 January 1883 – 12 September 1938) was a British military officer and a grandson of Queen Victoria. He served as Governor-General of the Union of South Africa from 20 November 1920 to 21 January 1924.
On 15 October 1913, Prince Arthur married his cousin Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife (17 May 1891 – 26 February 1959) at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, London.
Princess Margaret of Connaught (Margaret Victoria Charlotte Augusta Norah; 15 January 1882 – 1 May 1920) was Crown Princess of Sweden and Duchess of Scania as the first wife of the future King Gustaf VI Adolf. She was the elder daughter of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, third son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and his wife Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia.
Known in Sweden as Margareta, she died 30 years before her husband's accession to the throne of Sweden
OSBORNE HOUSE, Isle of Wight. Queen Victoria and family in the grounds of Osborne House, 1898. Photograph from the Ryde album.
Left to right:
Leopold of Battenberg, Princess Aribert of Anhalt, Duchess of York with Prince Edward and Princess Mary (on knee), Princess Margaret of Connaught Prince Alexander of Battenberg (on ground),
Duke of York with Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Prince Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Connaught, Princess Patricia of Connaught (on ground), Princess Henry of Battenberg, Princess Ena of Battenberg, Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Maurice of Battenberg
Left to right:
Leopold of Battenberg, Princess Aribert of Anhalt, Duchess of York with Prince Edward and Princess Mary (on knee), Princess Margaret of Connaught Prince Alexander of Battenberg (on ground),
Duke of York with Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Prince Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Connaught, Princess Patricia of Connaught (on ground), Princess Henry of Battenberg, Princess Ena of Battenberg, Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Maurice of Battenberg
Copyright © Historic England Media ID 1126355 Date: 23rd July 2008 Source: Historic EnglandSource: English Heritage Images Credit: Historic England Photo Library
Royal visit during colonial times in 1881 by Prince George (later King George V) and Prince Albert during their three-year tour of the British Empire visiting the Americas, the Falkland Islands, South Africa, Australia, Fiji, the Far East, Singapore, Ceylon, Aden, Egypt, the Holy Land and Greece between 1879 and 1882. Photo taken at Government House. Brisbane
Victoria, and her daughters and the children of Prince Arthur and Princess Louise. They played together as youngsters.
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