Picturing the Great WarThe First World War Blog from Mary Evans Picture Library

Princess Mary's Christmas Tin - a festive gift for thousands

In its 4 November 1914, The Tatler featured on its front cover, a portrait of the seventeen year-old Princess Mary, only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary under the somewhat saccharine but oft-used caption - "Our Little Princess".  The reason for her appearance on the magazine's cover was to promote an appeal - the Sailors and Soldiers Christmas Fund, "for Christmas presents for the Front."  

"The Princess is providing boxes of smoking requisites as Christmas gifts for the troops at the front, and we are sure that our readers will respond generously to this very excellent appeal.  A special photograph of the Princess will be embossed on the covers of the boxes."

Not only did the Princess's profile appear on the lid of each brass box, but inside was her photograph and a Christmas card for each lucky recipient of this 'gift from the nation'.  The rest of the contents varied depending on who it was intended for.  The tins were destined not only for servicemen abroad, but also nursing staff, wounded soldiers and the parents of those men who had been killed.  The majority of boxes delivered to the front contained two packs each of cigarettes and tobacco in distinctive, monogrammed yellow packaging, along with a pipe and tinder lighter.  Non-smokers (most definitely in the minority - see our blog from a fortnight ago) received acid tablets and a writing set, nurses were given chocolate while Indian troops received sweets and spices.  For servicemen not at the Front or at sea, each was given a bullet-shaped pen.  

                                                        

 

Approximately 335,000 of Princess Mary's tins made it to their destination before their Christmas 1914 deadline, though there were many who did not receive theirs until well into the New Year (in which case, the card inside wished them, "a victorious New Year").  The appeal was also hampered by a shortage of brass, needed for the box lid.   Much of this was designated for armaments manufacture, and the majority was imported from America.  When the Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo in May 1915, part of the cargo lost included a large consignment of brass.  Consequently, the Christmas tins of later years, made from a cheap alloy metal, tend to be of inferior quality.  Nevertheless, by the time the fund closed in 1920, over £200,000 had been donated and over two and a half million tins had been distributed. 

                                                                                

                                                                    

Princess Mary's Christmas tin remains an interesting and collectible memento of the Great War, and, as might be expected for an item produced in such quantities, they can still be picked up today at auction.  We have some interesting examples via our representation of the David Cohen collection, showing the contents looking spick and span.  One box apparently still contained a single cigarette!

Almost a century on, there is a new appeal by the Shorncliffe Trust, to revive Princess Mary's Christmas tin for service men and women spending Christmas overseas in 2014.  Follow @shornclifftin on Twitter to find out more. 

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=25269

Luci Gosling

 

 

Royal War Babies

As the world holds its breath for news of the Baby Cambridge, it seems appropriate to look at the births of two royal babies who were both related to Queen Victoria but were born in 1914 just as the tightly woven familial bonds and marriage alliances among European royal familes, were about to be rent apart.  

In May 1913, the marriage of Prince Ernest Augustus of Cumberland, later Duke of Brunswick, to Princess Viktoria Luise, youngest child and only daughter of the Kaiser, was famously the last great gathering of European royalty before the outbreak of war, with the Tsar, King George V (dressed in the uniform of a Prussian general) and Queen Mary all in attendance.  In March the following year, the new Duchess of Brunswick gave birth to her firstborn, a bouncing baby boy named Ernest Augustus after his father.  With the baby's father a nephew of Queen Alexandra (via his mother, Princess Thyra, Duchess of Cumberland, who was the Queen's younger sister) and his mother a great-grandaughter of Queen Victoria, it was natural that among his godparents was King George V who decreed that all children born to the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick would enjoy the style of His (or Her) Royal Highness, Prince of Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  

Little Ernest Augustus was the subject of countless photographs; as the first child of the Kaiser's only daughter, he enjoyed a special place in the German public's affection and postcards of the plump and robust baby, wearing a frilled dress, as was traditional at the time, were sold in their thousands in aid of the soldiers of Brunswick.  But by 1917, he was no longer a Prince of the United Kingdom, the Titles Deprivation Act ensuring that any Germanic relatives were erased from the Windsor family tree.

Over in Britain, another royal baby had been born just four and a half months after Ernest Augustus.  Alastair, Earl of Macduff, was the baby son of Prince and Princess Arthur of Connaught, born on 5 August 1914, the day after Great Britain had declared war on Germany.  Alastair's mother, the former Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife, grandaughter of King Edward VII, and so also a great-grandaughter of Queen Victoria, had married her cousin Prince Arthur of Connaught, son of the Duke of Connaught, in October 1913.  Alastair was to be their only son.  

The Earl of Macduff was also the subject of numerous photographs, though his parents, and particularly his mother, who spent the war nursing, were naturally more shy and reticent when it came to publicity.  Nevertheless, the pictures of Alastair in his kilt, or holding a picture of trains are endearingly sweet.  

Meanwhile, the two boys' fathers were serving their respective countries during the war.  The Duke of Brunswick, who had joined the Black Hussars on succeeding to the dukedom, rose to the rank of Major-General in the Prussian Army though in 1918 was forced to abdicate and resign his commission .  Prince Arthur of Connaught served as aide-de-campe to General Sir John French and then on staff at General headquarters until 1919.  He was twice mentioned in despatches.

Alastair, Earl of Macduff never married and became the Duke of Connaught in 1942 on the death of his long-lived grandfather (his father had died prematurely of throat cancer in 1938).  But just a year later, he died suddenly, at the age of just twenty-eight during a visit to Government House in Canada.  With no heirs, the dukedom of Connaught and Strathearn became extinct.

Ernest Augustus, who had lost his hereditary title at the age of four, became head of the House of Hanover, marrying Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein with whom he had six children.  He died in 1987.   

Had it not been for the First World War, it is very likely these two boys may have grown up knowing each other, meeting at family gatherings in Germany and England through the years.  As it was they remained distant cousins, born into the opposing sides of one huge, extended family.  

 

 

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22917

 Luci Gosling

The Patriotic Prince

This photograph of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, appeared in The Tatler on 12 August 1914, the magazine's first war-related issue.  Despite being several inches below the required height, the Prince was granted a commission in the Grenadier Guards at Warley Barracks in Brentwood soon after the outbreak of war.  The regiment was put on forty-eight hour standby and the Prince's nervous but determined expression hints perhaps at the expectation that he would be sent to the front at any moment.  Certainly The Tatler printed the picture as an example to all unmarried men who were wavering about volunteering to serve.

In the event, before he could join his unit in France, he was told by his father, George V, that Lord Kitchener would not permit the future King of England to face the enemy in action, or to risk capture.  'What does it matter?' fumed the Prince, who argued that he had four brothers to take his place if anything were to happen to him.

Eventually, the Prince went to France, where he served  on the staff of Major-General Lord Cavan, with the proviso that he should be kept well away from the fighting.  On one occasion, when he accompanied the divisional commander on an excursion to the front during the Battle of Loos, he returned to his car to find his driver had been killed by flying shrapnel.

Despite the fact the Prince did not take part in fighting, he was a popular figure throughout  the war, playing a morale-boosting role during visits to France, Palestine and Italy.  Portraits taken later in the war show a more mature and self-assured individual in marked contrast to the nervous-looking boy pictured in August 1914.

Luci Gosling