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The Prince of Wales's Children Act, 1889*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
Nothing was more abrasive to the popularity of the British monarchy than the civil list during the reign of Queen Victoria. The repeated requests to parliament for annuities and dowries for her children brought accusations against the sovereign of evading the responsibility to take care of her own family. The chief critics were the Radical M.P.s, a sort of left wing in the Liberal party. A few were theoretical republicans but tempered their views by an acknowledgement that the constitutional monarchy was in reality a veiled republic capable of yielding the most advanced political and social reforms. Their twin interests would seem to have been 1) to complete the Gladstonian principle of fiscal economy by its extension to the royal family and 2) to make court life a model of simplicity in harmony with the nineteenth-century goal of human dignity.
What brought the matter to a climax was the prospective requests in the eighteen-eighties for the children of the Prince of Wales. As the Radical M.P.s saw the issue, parliament was about to be asked to take care of the Queen's grandchildren numbering more than a score. What seemed imperative was the appointment of a select committee to determine both the extent of the legal obligation of parliament and the ability of Queen Victoria to find the money from her available funds. Sir Charles Dilke, Chelsea, whose outbursts against civil list expenditures had aroused the anger of the Queen in 1871-72, had been suggesting such a body. But he agreed that the children of the Prince of Wales (whom he met frequently at social events) merited grants as they were in the line of succession but not those of the Queen's younger sons and daughters. Dilke was more specific on May 27, 1883 (or as Lee states May 7), when he dined at Marlborough House. The Prince of Wales raised anew the needs of his children. Dilke assured him of support and favored a lump sum to be distributed by the Prince of Wales rather than piecemeal legislation as had been the case with the Queen's own children.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1973
Footnotes
*
Paper read at Pacific Northwest Conference on British Studies, Eugene, Oregon, March 1973. The financial assistance of the Research Committee of Arizona State University is gratefully acknowledged.
References
1 Dod's Parliamentary Companion is used as the basis for identification of party affiliations. Liberty has been taken to place in the camp of Radical M.P.s those with such labels as “independent,” “earnest,” and “advanced” Liberals, as well as Lib-Labs (working-class representatives whose candidacies in some constituencies were supported by the Liberal party).
2 Draft Memoirs, British Museum, Dilke Papers, Add. MSS. 43936, ff. 107-108; Gwynn, Stephen and Tuckwell, Gertrude M., The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Dilke, Bart, M.P. (London, 1917), I, pp. 425–26, 523Google Scholar; SirLee, Sidney, King Edward VII: A Biography (London, 1925), I, pp. 600–01.Google Scholar
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4 Chamberlain to Dilke, Jan 24, 1885, University of Birmingham, Chamberlain Papers, JC 5/24/402.
5 Salisbury to Queen Victoria, Feb. 15, 1888 and Queen Victoria to Salisbury, Aug. 16, 1888, Buckle, George Earle, ed., The Letters of Queen Victoria 1886-1901 (London, 1930–1932), 3rd ser., 1, pp. 383–84, 435–36.Google Scholar
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8 The sixth earl of Fife was born in 1849, making him eighteen years the senior of his bride. He had been a close friend of the Prince of Wales, now to be his father-in-law. He possessed 250,000 acres scattered over Aberdeen, Banff, and Elgin, yielding an annual income of £72,563. The Queen elevated him to be the duke of Fife. Gibbs, Vicary and Doubleday, H.A., eds., The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland (London, 1927), V, pp. 379–80.Google Scholar
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11 Ibid., July 4, 1889, pp. 1474, 1478. 1484 (Bradlaugh).
12 Draft Memoirs, Dilke Papers, Add. MSS. 43931, f. 218.
13 Salisbury to Queen Victoria and Queen Victoria to Salisbury, July 9, 1889, Buckle, , ed., The Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd ser., I. pp. 509–510.Google Scholar
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15 The frugal Prince Consort received an annuity of £30,000 plus some perquisites from 1840 to his death in 1861 and would appear to have had little personal expenses. John Camden Neild was a barrister-at-law, Lincoln's Inn, aged 72 years at his death in 1852. He was left an inheritance of £250,000 by his father twenty years previous which he apparently had never touched. In addition, he acquired by his own effort property valued from £250,000 to £500,000. He would seem to have led the life of a recluse and to have been of miserly habits.
16 Hansard, 3rd ser., CCCXXXVIII, July 25, 1889, pp. 1284–87Google Scholar (Labouchere), July 26, 1889, pp. 1441, 1446-47 (Bradlaugh), July 29, 1889, pp. 1627-28 (Labouchere); CCCXXXIX Aug. 2, 1889, p. 193, and Aug. 5, 1889, pp. 333-37 (Labouchere).
17 Ibid., July 25, 1889, pp. 1302-06, and Aug. I, 1889, pp. 138-43 (Storey).
18 Ibid., July 25, 1889, pp. 1292-97, July 26, 1889, p. 1436. and July 29, 1889 (Labouchere); Truth, Aug. 1, 1889 (Labouchere). See also draft report proposed by Labouchere to the select committee in Parl. Papers, 1889, XI, No. 271, pp. 5–9.Google Scholar
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24 Ibid., Aug. 1, 1889, pp. 133, 153-56 (Labouchere), pp. 135-36, 144 (Storey), Aug. 2, 1889, pp. 203-05 (Labouchere), pp. 206-08 (McLaren).
25 Ibid., July 25, 1889, pp. 1350-56 and July 29, 1889, pp. 1584, 1592-95 (Morley).
26 Ibid., July 25, 1889, pp. 1325-26 (Illingworth), July 29, 1889, pp. 1588-89, 1595 (Morley), Aug. 5, 1889, p. 333 (Labouchere).
27 Ibid., July 4, 1889, p. 1445 (Picton), p. 1480 (Storey), July 25, 1889, pp. 1300-01 (Storey), p. 1294 (Labouchere), July 26, 1889, p. 1438 (Bradlaugh), pp. 1523-24 (Lawson).
28 Smith to Queen Victoria, July 9, 1889, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd ser., I, pp. 510–12.Google Scholar
29 Salisbury to Queen Victoria, July 13, 1889, Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd ser., I, pp. 512–13.Google Scholar
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33 Ibid., July 26, 1889, pp. 1468-70 (Hoare).
34 Public General Acts, I George II. c.2, pp. 9-10.
35 Hansard, 3rd ser., CCCXXXVIII, July 25, 1889, p. 1345 (Barttelot), July 26, 1889, pp. 1455-58 (Churchill).Google Scholar
36 Lord Palmerston, during the debate on the annuity for the Prince of Wales, had itemized the initial expenditures at Sandringham as £220,000 for the purchase of the landed estate, £100,000 to furnish the residence, and £60,000 for an enlargement of the residence, making a total of £380,000. Hansard, 3rd ser., CLXIX, Feb. 23, 1863, pp. 649–50.Google Scholar
37 Hansard, 3rd ser., CCCXXXVIII, July 25. 1889, pp. 1266–67, 1275Google Scholar (Smith), July 26, 1889, pp. 1458-59 (Churchill).
38 Ibid., July 26, 1889, pp. 1514-17 (Hartington), July 29, 1889, pp. 1598, 1601, 1607 (Chamberlain), pp. 1683-84 (Smith).
39 Ibid., July 25, 1889, p. 1271 (Smith). July 26, 1889, pp. 1461-62 (Churchill), July 29, 1889, pp. 1607-08 (Chamberlain).
40 The largest recipients in the family of George III were the Prince of Wales (£135,000). the Princess of Wales (£35,000). and Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (£50,000). husband of Princess Charlotte (daughter of the Prince of Wales) and later king of the Belgians. The six younger sons and the four surviving daughters shared the rest of the annuities.
41 Hansard, 3rd ser., CCCXXXVII, July 4, 1889, p. 1483Google Scholar; CCCXXXVIII, July 25, 1889, p. 1311-17, 1322-24; and CCCXXXIX, Aug. 2, 1889. pp. 191-92, 201 (Gladstone).
42 For an acknowledgement that an adequate sum to maintain the Prince of Wales depended upon increased returns from the duchy of Cornwall see Hansard, 3rd ser., CLXIX, Feb. 23, 1863, pp. 644–51.Google Scholar
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44 Ibid., July 26, 1889, p. 1370 (Rathbone), pp. 1466-67 (Vivian), pp. 1472-73 (Morgan).
45 What Burke and Pitt objected to was not only the fiscal irresponsibility of George III but that much of the supplementary votes to pay his debts went to corrupt parliament to do his will. Professor Earl A. Reitan regards the struggle to control the civil list in the reign of George III as a step in the evolution of parliamentary government; “The Civil List in Eighteenth-Century British Politics,” The Historical Journal (1966), pp. 318–37.Google Scholar
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47 Pall Mall Gazette, Jan, 8, 1885; Spectator, Nov. 22, 1884.
48 Daily Telegraph, Jan. 8, 1885; Morning Post, Jan. 8, 1885; Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 8, 1885; Spectator, Nov. 22, 1884.
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54 Daily Chronicle, Jan. 7, 1885; Daily News, Jan. 5, 8, 1885; Manchester Guardian, Jan. 9, 1885.
55 Daily News, July 15, 1889; Manchester Guardian, July 6, 1889; Observer, July 7, 1889.
56 Sir Thomas Erskine May would list as a major step in the preservation of the monarchy as a popular element in the constitution the elimination in 1831 from the civil list of monies for the civil administration, thus cutting off a menas of corrupting the government, May, The Constitutional History of England since the accession of George III (London, 1871, 3rd ed.), I, p. 247.Google Scholar
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58 Daily Chronicle, July 6, 27, 1889; Daily News, July 4, 5, 9, 15, 23, 24, 1889; Manchester Guardian, July 6, 1889.
59 Daily Chronicle, July 26, 1889; Manchester Guardian, July 6, 1889.
60 The Economist, July 6, 1889.
61 Daily News, July 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 1889; Manchester Guardian, July 23, 26, 1889.
62 Observer, June 30, July 7, 28, 1889.