Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/583

 current news. He took genuine pleasure in the lighter social amusements and gave them every encouragement. Consequently society in almost all its phases appealed to him, and the conventions of royal exclusiveness, to which he had been trained, gave way to his versatile human interests. There was a democratic and a cosmopolitan breadth about his circle of companions. He did not suffer his rank to exclude him from gatherings to which royalty rarely sought admission. He attended the reunions of the Cosmopolitan Club as a private member, or dined with friends at the Garrick Club, or attended the more bohemian entertainments of the Savage Club. In 1869 there was formed under his immediate auspices and guidance a new club called the Marl borough Club, with a house in Pall Mall almost overlooking Marlborough House. The members were drawn from the wide range of his personal acquaintances, and he joined them at the Marlborough Club without ceremony. A chance meeting at the Cosmopolitan Club in 1867 with the Hungarian traveller, Arminius Vambery, made the stranger thenceforth a favoured associate. The experience was typical of his easy catholicity of intercourse.

His mother, while denying his title to political responsibility, was well content that the prince should carry on in her behalf her husband's works of charity and public utility. He readily obeyed her wish in this regard. No public institution or social movement, which his father had favoured, sought his countenance in vain. Of the Society of Arts he was soon elected president (22 Oct. 1863) in succession to the prince consort. He always took an active part in the choice of the recipient of the Albert medal, which was founded by the society in 1862 in his father's memory to reward conspicuous service in the arts, manufactures, and commerce. When on his accession to the throne he exchanged the post of president for that of patron, he accepted with much satisfaction the award of the Albert medal to himself. But he went far beyond his father in his personal association with great public institutions. He created a new precedent by accepting the presidency of St. Bartholomew's Hospital on 20 March 1867, office which he also held till his accession. His public energy in any genuine cause of social improvement, education, or philanthropy knew indeed no slackening till his death. In every part of the country he was busy pronouncing benedictions on good works. Among his early engagements of this kind were the opening of the British Orphan Asylum at Slough (24 June 1863) ; the opening of the new town hall at Halifax (August 1863) ; the laying of foundation stones of the new west wing of the London Hospital (June 1864), of the British and Foreign Bible Society (11 June 1866), and of new buildings at Glasgow University (8 Oct. 1868) ; and the unveiling of the statue of Peabody, the American philanthropist, in the City of London (23 July 1869). He presided at innumerable charity festivals, beginning on 18 May 1864 with the Royal Literary Fund dinner, and he repeated that experience at the centenary celebration of the Fund in 1890. Like his father, too, he was especially active, when the opportunity offered, in organising exhibitions at home and abroad.

Early visits to Ireland had brought that country well within the scope of his interest, and although political agitation came to limit his Irish sojourns, he lost few opportunities in manhood of manifesting sympathy with efforts for the country's industrial progress. As guest of the viceroy, Lord Kimberley, on 8 May 1865, he opened the Grand International Ireland Exhibition at Dublin. It was thus in Ireland that he first identified himself in an authoritative way with the system of exhibitions. He returned to Dublin in the spring of 1868 on a visit of greater ceremony, and the princess came with him to pay her first visit to the country. The lord-lieutenant was the marquis (afterwards first duke) of Abercorn, whose eldest son, Lord Hamilton, had joined the prince's household in 1866 and was a very ultimate associate. The prince was now invested on 18 April with the order of St. Patrick; he was made honorary LL.D. of Trinity College, Dublin, witnessed the unveiling of Burke's statue outside the college, attended Punchestown races, and reviewed the troops in Phœnix Park. It was the period of the Fenian outbreak, and there were threats of disturbance, but they came to little, and the prince and princess were received with enthusiasm. The lord mayor of Dublin in an address of welcome expressed a hope that the prince would acquire a royal residence in Ireland. Before and since the recommendation was pressed on the English government and it was assumed that it had the prince's acquiescence. A third visit was paid to Ireland during the prince's adult career, in August 1871, when he opened the Royal