Name Prince of | ||
Born 13 January 1883
Windsor Castle, Berkshire ( 1883-01-13 ) Burial 22 September 1938
St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle and later Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore Issue Alastair, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn House Windsor (since 1917)
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(until 1917) Father Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn Mother Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia Occupation Governor-General of South Africa, military officer Died September 12, 1938, London, United Kingdom Spouse Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife (m. 1913) Education Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Children Alastair Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn Parents Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn Similar People Queen Victoria, Princess Alexandra - 2nd Duch, Princess Louise Margaret, Princess Patricia of Connaught, Princess Margaret of Connaught | ||
Funeral of prince arthur of connaught 1938
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 held the title of a British prince with the style His Royal Highness. He served as Governor-General of the Union of South Africa from 20 November 1920 to 21 January 1924.
Contents
Early life
Prince Arthur was born on 13 January 1883 at Windsor Castle. His father was the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His mother was Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia.
The prince was baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 16 February 1883, and his godparents were Queen Victoria (his paternal grandmother), Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (his great-great aunt, for whom his paternal aunt The Princess Beatrice stood proxy), Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia (his maternal uncle, who was represented by the German Ambassador Count Munster), Princess Henry of the Netherlands (his maternal aunt, who was represented by Countess Munster), the Duke of Cambridge (the Queen's cousin), and the Duke of Edinburgh (his paternal uncle, whose brother the Prince of Wales represented him).
Prince Arthur was the first British royal prince to be educated at Eton College.
Military career
After attending finishing school, Prince Arthur was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the 7th (Queen's Own) Hussars in 1901. During the Second Boer War, he saw active duty with the 7th Hussars and spent several months stationed at Krugersdorp. In 1907, he was promoted to the rank of captain in the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys). He became the honorary Colonel-in-Chief of this regiment in 1920.
During the First World War, Prince Arthur served as aide-de-camp to Generals Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig, the successive commanders of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1919 and became a colonel in the reserves in 1922. In October 1922, Prince Arthur was promoted to the honorary rank of major general and became an aide-de-camp to his first cousin, King George V.
Since the king's children were too young to undertake public duties until after the First World War, Prince Arthur carried out a variety of ceremonial duties at home and overseas.
Marriage
On 15 October 1913, Prince Arthur married Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife (17 May 1891 – 26 February 1959) at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, London.
The royal couple were attended by five bridesmaids: Princess Mary, Princess Maud of Fife, Lady Mary Cambridge, Lady Helena Cambridge, and Lady May Cambridge.
Princess Alexandra was the eldest daughter of the late Duke of Fife and The Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of King Edward VII. As such, the couple were first cousins once removed. Princess Alexandra held the title of Duchess of Fife in her own right.
After their marriage, Arthur and Alexandra were styled Their Royal Highnesses Prince and Princess Arthur of Connaught.
Together they had one child:
Later life
After the accession of his cousin, King George V, Prince Arthur and his aging father were the most senior male members of the Royal Family over the age of 18 to reside in the United Kingdom. As such, he undertook a wide variety of royal duties on behalf of the King, and acted as a Counsellor of State during periods of the King's absence abroad.
In 1906, by order of the King, he vested the Meiji Emperor of Japan with the Order of the Garter, as a consequence of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In 1918, he was a guest aboard the Japanese battlecruiser Kirishima when she voyaged from Japan to Canada. In 1920, Prince Arthur succeeded Viscount Buxton as governor-general and commander-in-chief in South Africa. The Earl of Athlone succeeded him in these posts in 1924. Upon returning to Britain, Prince Arthur became involved in a number of charitable organizations, including serving as chairman of the board of directors of Middlesex Hospital. Like his father, the Duke of Connaught, he was active in the Freemasons, becoming Provincial Grand Master for Berkshire in 1924.
Prince Arthur of Connaught died of stomach cancer at age 55. He is buried in the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore. One of his last public appearances was at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. His father, the Duke of Connaught, survived him by four years. Prince Arthur's only son, who used the courtesy title Earl of MacDuff after 1917, succeeded his paternal grandfather as 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex in 1942.
Titles and styles
Honours
Medals
Military record
Honorary military appointments
Arms
As a male-line grandchild of a British Sovereign, Prince Arthur was awarded, for his twenty-first birthday, the use of the royal arms, with an inescutcheon of the shield of Saxony, and differenced by a label argent, of five points, the outer pair and central point bearing crosses gules, and the inner pair fleur-de-lys azure. In 1917, the inescutcheon was dropped by royal warrant from George V.