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Charlecote
Park
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Franks
Forage No 14.
After
‘Britannia’
 “To Captain H. Fairfax
R. N. from Prince Edward & Prince George of Wales, on their leaving
H.M.S. Britannia. July 25. 1879.” So reads the inscription
on the Princes Centrepiece on the buffet in the dining room at Charlecote.
(Prince Edward’s full name was Victor Albert Christian Edward; he was
popularly known as Eddy.) The silver centrepiece was the work of the
silversmith Frederick Elkington of the firm Elkington and Co. A future
forage on Elkington is planned.
 Eddy (13) and George
(12) joined the Britannia as Naval Cadets in 1877, the same year
that Sir Henry Fairfax commanded the vessel. The ship was launched in
January 1860 as Prince of Wales at Portsmouth and renamed Britannia
(the fifth vessel so named) on replacing the previous boys training
ship, also Britannia in 1869. On board Britannia the
boys were under the tutelage of John Neale Dalton who was with them
until they finished the world cruise in 1882. Life was hard for cadets
and discipline strict, the birch not used sparingly. (Photo, right,
of the boys on Britannia. They left the ship in July 1879 and on 6th
of August joined H.M.S. Bacchante off Cowes. It was decided
by the Royal Family and the Government that the princes undertake a
cruise and the Bacchante was part of a squadron intended to patrol
the sea-lanes of the British Empire. The vessel left for the Caribbean
on 25th September 1879.
Fast-forward to 7th January 1880
when the vessel entered Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. On the following day
(Eddy’s 16th birthday), to quote from the prince’s diary
which they kept during the cruise: “Today both of us were rated midshipmen;
we were at the time the only two naval cadets in the gunroom.” They
spent just over two weeks in Trinidad as guest of the governor. On 21st
of January the princes and their retinue travelled inland by rail from
San Fernando (of Last Train fame) to visit some of the island’s mud
volcanoes. On the way they stopped at a mission founded by Capuchin
priests in 1687 to convert the Amerindians. The mission grew into a
thriving village called La Mision de Savana; there the princes
planted two Poui trees in the churchyard and that day it became known
as Princes Town and is today a thriving cosmopolitan town. Poui trees
are renowned for their bright yellow blossom
The Bacchante left Trinidad on 22nd
January at the completion of the first of three voyages to the
Colonies. She finally returned to England in 1882 and discharged her
royal Midshipmen. The princes went their separate ways; in 1883 Eddy
going to Cambridge and George back to sea. Eddy died at Sandringham
in 1892, aged 28, supposedly of influenza. George became Prince of Wales
on the succession of his father Edward VII in 1901 and became King George
V in 1910.
Sir Henry Fairfax, brother of Sir William Fairfax,
2nd baronet, rose to the rank of Admiral in 1897 and he died
in Naples in 1900 aged 63. He is buried in Benrig Cemetery, St. Boswells,
the resting place of several members of the Fairfax and Ramsay families.
Frank Storr
Frank has written a fuller article entitled
‘From Charlecote to Princes Town- The Princes in Training’ Contact him
on n.splurge@btinternet.com
if you would like a copy emailed to you.
Reading 'After
Britannia' in the last issue of FastNews I thought you might be interested
in a couple of
additional points…
There is an exact copy of the Princes' Centrepiece to be seen when visiting
Sandringham House, the Queen's
Norfolk residence. The copy is in bronze and is just inscribed Edward
- George and is located in the Sports wing at
the back of the house, that area of the house visited when you have
completed the tour of the main rooms in the
house.
When I first started 'guiding' at Charlecote, I was told that there
was a notice that accompanied the statuette at
Sandringham which read 'This is a copy of a statue, the original being
located at Charlecote Park’. However when
we visited Sandringham, while we found the copy, I did not see any notice.
Prince George when he became King
George V was known as the 'Sailor King'.
On one occasion while acting as guide in the Dining Room, a comment
was made by a visitor that the rope in
Prince George's hand was incorrect as it coiled in the wrong direction.
As a scout in former times, I realised that
ropes have their own way, you always coil it the way it wants to turn,
so I accepted that this 'nautical expert' must
be correct. However recently, visiting the Ropery at the Royal Dockyards
at Chatham, I found out that ropes are
made in two directions, depending on which side of the ship they were
to be used. So in answer to my query to the
Rope Guide, could a rope be coiled in either direction, the answer was
“Yes”, depending on which type of rope it
was, port side or starboard rigging.
Regards, Derek Tilford, Saturday Team
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