LIFE OF BRITAIN’S SAILOR KING

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 100, 22 January 1936, Page 11

LIFE OF BRITAIN’S SAILOR KING

Service in Royal Navy as Prelude to Long, Momentous Reign FAMOUS VISIT TO INDIA RECALLED Empire Mission; King George’s Famous “Wake Up” Speech King George the Fifth was born on June 3, 1865. He was King Edward’s second son, and entered the direct line of succession only after the death of his elder brother, the Duke of Clarence, in 1892. As Heir-Presumptive he married in the following year the Princess .Victoria Mary, born on May 26, 1867, only daughter of Her Roya: Highness the late Duchess of Teck, and grand-daughter of Queen Victoria’s first cousin, the late Duke of Cambridge. There were six children of the marriage, five sons and one daughter. The Prince of Wales, Edward Albert, born on June 23, 1894, who now succeeds to the Throne, Prince Albert Frederick, Duke of York, born in 1895. Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, born in 1897, Prince .Henry, Duke of Gloucester, born in 1900, Prince George, Duke of Kent, born in. 1902, and Prince John, born in 1905 (died 1919).

HE late King, who ascended the Throne fifteen years younger than King Edward, could claim without question to be the most-travelled of ■ monarchs. Few, moreover, of his subjects, as he said to the Royal Colonial Institute in 1908, could have landed on so many portions of British soil. His travel began at an early age, as his education was entirely a naval one. He entered the Britannia in 1878, and only two years later embarked upon a long cruise In the Bacchante with his brother, the late Duke of Clarence, which took him first to the West Indies, and thence to Madeira, Simon’s Bay, Australian ports, Fiji, Yokohama, HongKong, and Singapore. Returning by tb£ Suez Canal, their Royal Highnesses made a tour from Jaffa through the Holy Land.

and a panther in the course of the first hunt, while on the second day a wounded tigress which' charged the Prince was brought down with a shoulder shot. After the Prince and Princess of Wales left India, they made a short stay in Egypt and again visited the Pyramids. The Renown reached Portsmouth on May 7, 1906, and their Royal Highnesses

received a joyous welcome home. Views on Government. During intervals in the tour His Majesty had "opportunities of enjoying both small and big game shooting, but it was a -deep disappointment that the big shooting camp arranged in the Nepal Terai had to be abandoned owing to an outbreak of cholera. In his farewell speech at Karachi, where the homeward voyage was commenced, His Majesty said that the tour had been “an unending and unbroken series of happy and most instructive experiences.” Their Majesties halted at Suez on their way home, and paid a visit to the Khedive of Egypt at Cairo. On their arrival in London Their Majesties received a civic welcome at the Mansion House, where the King, in a speech of unusual length and interest, said he could not help thinking that the “task of governing India will be made easier if we on our part infuse into it a wider element of sympathy.”

Tour of Dominions. Their Majesties at that time the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, next set forth on a long tour of the Dominions, which had been postponed owing to the death of Queen Victoria in January of the same year. They embarked in the cruiser Ophir, leaving their children behind under the care of their grandfather, who had been proclaimed King Edward VII. Their Royal Highnesses keenly felt the separation from their children. “It nearly broke my heart to part with them,' said her Royal Highness, who insisted that they ail be photographed, the pictures, specially framed, hanging in her own cabin during the whole of the tour. “I’ll look after the young beggars,” said King Edward, with characteristic joviality, and it is said that he kept this promise almost to the extent of spoiling them. Sailing from Portsmouth, the Royal party in the Ophir first visited Australia, where the Duke opened the initial Parliament of the Commonwealth. After a great reception, the Ophir proceeded to New Zealand. It was a little before noon on Monday, June 10, that the Ophir, accompanied by the warships St. George and Juno, arrived at Auckland. The trip from Sydney being faster than anticipated, the official welcomes and ceremonials did not begin until the next day. During the forenoon, the Ophir was moored alongside what was then called the Queen Street Wharf, the Governor, Lord Ranfurly, being the first to welcome their Royal Highnesses. An address was then presented to the Duke" by the Premier, and later an address from the citizens of Auckland was presented by Dr. . (later Sir John) Logan Campbell. Soon afterwards, a proclamation extending’ the boundaries of New Zealand to the Cook Islands was read by the Governor. The Duke, in a short speech, expressed pleasure at the fact that the first New Zealand ceremony he took part in bore relation to so great an event in« the history of the colony. A procession was then formed, and after passing through the city streets it moved to Government House, where the Duke, on behalf of the'people, accepted Sir John Logan Campbell’s gift of the title deeds and plan of Cornwall Park, which he gave to the city in commemoration of the Royal visit. i» On June 13, the Duke and Duchess left for Rotorua, where they were received with demonstrative loyalty by nearly 5000 Maoris. Leaving Rotorua, the Royal party returned to Auckland on June 15. departing for Wellington by the Ophir early next morning. The party reached Wellington on June 18, and Christchurch on June 22. Dunedin was visited on June 26, and on the following evening the Ophir left Lyttelton for Hobart.

: In tl\e light of recent happenings, chief among which has been the Indian Round Table Conference, with its message of hope for a new Federated India, taking a proud, independent place among the Dominions of the Empire, this episode is given a fresh significance. It speaks , more eloquently than could the highest abstract praises for the King's deep and prophetic wisdom as a sovereign—wisdom which in the years before the war, caused him to mistrust the friendship of a man who was to become the most sinister figure that, has walked the pages of modern European, history. x Coronation and Durbar. On June 22, 1911, King George was crowned with all the splendour of his forefathers' coronations. Later in the same year his Majesty and Queen Mary returned to India as King-Emperor and Queen-Empress to take part in the greatest Durbar that had ever taken place in the Indian Empire. There were magnificent coronation celebrations at Delhi, the new capital. Their Majesties wore robes of purple velvet trimmed with ermine. After a religious procession of Hindus, Mohammedans, and Sikhs, the King reviewed 50.000 men of the Indian Army. While in Nepal, his Majesty, during a big shoot, bagged 21 tigers, 10 rhinoceroses, and two bears. While the King was shooting in the jungle, her Majesty the Queen again visited the Taj Mahal and the tomb of Akbar. They arrived home in London on February 5. 1912, and not even a heavy snowstorm could chill their reception, the King remarking: “The English clipiate may be changeable, but her people certainly are not.” War Clouds Burst. Early in 3914 the King and Queen visited France and had a wonderful re- , ception in Paris. Their visit strengthened the Eutentp Cordiale in unsuspected preparation for a catastrophe. Less than four months later war clouds burst and rained horror and. devastation on many lands and peoples. The conflict brought forth all the best qualities of the British nation throughout the Empire and their Majesties “led all the rest” in calmness, faith, and resolute British character. On November 29, 1914, the King made his first visit to the Front—the first time in 170 years that a British King had been among his soldiers in the field. And his son, the Heir-Apparent, was in the Army, knowing something of the muck and squalor and valour of war. When peace came at last his Majesty spoke for all the Empire with words of great simplicity: “Peade has been signed —so ends the greatest war in history. I join you all in thanking God.”

In the same tour the Duke and Duchess also visited South Africa, Canada, and Newfoundland. On their return from this historic voyage the Duke, speaking at the Guildhall, delivered* his famous message from the Empire to the Motherland and called upon his countrymen to “wake up.” • Visit to India.

Exactly thirty years, all but a day, after King Edward VII set foot in India, King George and the Queen landed in Bombay, on November 9, 1905, on their memorable tour through the Indian Empire. They made the voyage in the battleship Renown, and were escorted in Indian waters by a squadron of cruisers. The tour was prolonged and arduous, but it was marked by complete success, and everywhere Their Majesties were greeted with the utmost enthusiasm. The King on his arrival said that lie and the Queen hoped to carry home with them “not only a warm sympathy and affection for the people of India, but an increased understanding of their manifold probblems, and an ecquaintance with the various classes, official and non-official, who, under God’s Providence, were labouring to one end—the well-being of India and the happiness of her peoples.” The magnificence of Their Majesties’ reception at Bombay, where the King laid the foundation stone of the vast new docks, formed a fitting prelude to a series of remarkable pageants in the great cities and in the principal native States.

At Calcutta the King laid the foundation stone of the Victoria Memorial Hall the stately building devised by the late Lord Curzon and erected on the Maidan. At Rawalpindi he reviewed 55,000 troops of all arms, commanded by Lord Kitchener. Their Majesties traversed the grim defile of the Khyber Pass, and at Quetta they saw the great fortress which guards the southern landward approach to India. At Rangoon and Mandalay they enjoyed the opportunity of close contact with the Burmese, among the newest, but not the least loyal, of Brjtish subjects in the East At Gwalior and Hyderabad, Mysore and Jaipur, Bikanir and Udaipur they partook of the splendid hospitality of India’s princes. During the tour the Prince enjoyed some big game shooting. In the jungle near Hyderabad be bagged two tigers