Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/596

 The commission decided to take evidence at both Edinburgh and Dublin (January 1885). It was deemed politic for the prince, if he travelled with the commission at all, to go to Dublin if he went to Edinburgh. The final decision was that he should go to Dublin independently of the commission and study the housing question there privately. In spite of the political agitation that was raging in the country, both the queen and Lord Spencer, the lord-lieutenant, saw some advantage in such an expedition. The prince had not been to Ireland for fourteen years. It was now settled that he and the princess should revisit the country in April. The conditions admitted of his inspecting the crowded slums of Dublin and at the same time of his testing anew the loyalty of the Irish people.

The experiment was not without its dangers, but the threats of opposition came to little. The nationalist leaders issued a manifesto urging on their followers an attitude of reserve. The lord mayor and corporation of Dublin refused to present an address of welcome, but a city reception committee well filled their place (9 April). The prince visited without protection the poor districts of the city and was heartily received. On 10 April he laid the foundation stone of the New Museum of Science and of the national library; at the Royal University he received the hon. degree of LL.D. and the princess that of Mus.Doc. Next day he opened the new dock at the extremity of North Wall, and named it the Alexandra basin. He paid a visit to Trinity College, Dublin, and presented in the gardens of Dublin Castle new colours to the duke of Cornwall's light infantry.

On 13 April the royal party started for Cork. The home rulers of the south urged the people to resent the visit as a degradation. On the road hostile demonstrations were made. But the prince was undisturbed. From Cork he passed to Limerick, where no jarring notes were struck, and thence went by way of Dublin to Belfast, where there was abundant enthusiasm (23 April). After a day at Londonderry (26 April), he left Larne for Holyhead (27 April). The nationalists' endeavour to prove the disloyalty of Ireland met with no genuine success. VI One of the interests which grew upon the prince in middle life was freemasonry, which powerfully appealed to his fraternal and philanthropic instincts. He lent his patronage to the craft in all parts of the British empire. Initiated into the order in Sweden in December 1868, he received the rank of Past Grand Master of England at a meeting of Grand Lodge on 1 Sept. 1869. In Sept. 1875, after the resignation of the marquis of Ripon, he was installed in great splendour at the Albert Hall as Grand Master of the order.

During the twenty-six years that the Prince of Wales filled the office he performed with full masonic rites the many ceremonies of laying foundation stones in which he took part. He did what he could to promote the welfare of the three great charitable institutions of freemasons, the Boys' School, the Girls' School, and the Benevolent Institution. He presided at festival dinners of all the charities, twice at the first (1870 and 1898) and the second (1871 and 1888), and once at the third (1873). On his accession to the throne he relinquished the grand mastership and assumed the title of protector of the craft in England. His interest in freemasonry never slackened.

Meanwhile Gladstone remained faithful to his resolve to provide the prince with useful and agreeable employment. One office which Lord Beaconsfield's death rendered vacant was filled on the prime minister's recommendation by the prince, with the result that he entered on a new if minor sphere of interest which proved very congenial. On 6 May 1881 he was appointed a trustee of the British Museum, and eight days later joined the standing committee, again in succession to Lord Beaconsfield. Until the prince's accession to the throne he constantly attended the committee's meetings, kept himself well informed of all matters of importance in the administration of the museum, and warmly supported the action of the director whenever it was called in question. It was with reluctance that he retired from the management of the museum at his accession, on learning that a sovereign could not be member of a body which was liable to be sued in a court of law. One of the prince's services to the museum was the election, through his influence, of his friend Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild [q. v. Suppl. I] as fellow trustee; the baron's Waddesdon bequest was an important addition to the museum's treasures. In the capacity of trustee the prince received on 9 June 1885 the statue of Darwin, which was erected at the