Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/598

 Doulton with the Albert gold medal of the Society of Arts in recognition of his services to the manufacture of pottery.

His faith in the advantage of exhibitions was not shaken by the inauspicious experiments of 1871–4, and he actively aided in 1883 a revival on a more limited scale of the old scheme. His neighbour in Norfolk, Sir Edward Birkbeck, had interested him in his attempts to improve the fishing industry of the country, and under the prince's direct auspices a National Fisheries Exhibition at Norwich in April 1881 developed in 1883 into an International Fisheries Exhibition at South Kensington, which the prince ceremonially opened and closed (14 May–31 Oct.). The success of the undertaking justified sequels at the same place, in the International Health Exhibition next year, and in the International Inventions and Music Exhibition in 1885. There followed a far more ambitious enterprise in 1886, when the prince with exceptional vigour helped to organise an exhibition of the manufactures and arts of India and the colonies. It was the only one of these ventures which was controlled by a royal commission, and the prince was president of the commissioners. Queen Victoria, on her son's representations, showed an unwonted activity by opening this exhibition in person (4 May 1886). Great popular interest was shown in the enterprise, and a handsome profit was realised.

The prince was anxious to set on a permanent basis the scheme which had made so powerful an appeal to the public not only of Great Britain but of India and the colonies. Queen Victoria's jubilee was approaching, and many suggestions for a national celebration were under consideration. In the autumn of 1886 the prince proposed to the lord mayor of London that a permanent institute in London, to form a meeting-place for colonial and Indian visitors, and a building for the exhibition of colonial and Indian products, should be erected as a memorial of the queen's long reign. The prince professed anxiety to pursue his efforts to strengthen the good feeling between the mother country, India, and the colonies. At a meeting which he called at St. James's Palace on 12 Jan. 1887, the project of an Imperial Institute at South Kensington was adopted and a fund was started with 25,000l. out of the profits of the recent Indian and colonial Exhibition. Large donations were received from India and the colonies. All promised well. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone on 4 July 1887, and on 28 April 1891 the prince was formally constituted president of the corporation. The completed building was opened by Queen Victoria on 10 May 1893. A week later the Prince of Wales gave a great reception to all who had shown interest in the movement. Some interesting functions took place there under his guidance. On 28 July 1895 he presided when Dr. Jameson lectured on Rhodesia, and he attended a banquet to the colonial premiers on the occasion of the queen's diamond jubilee on 18 June 1897. But in spite of his active support the Institute failed to enjoy public favour. It satisfied no public need, and evoked no general enthusiasm. The prince reluctantly recognised the failure, and in 1899 assented to the transfer of the greater part of the building to the newly constituted London University. The operations of the Institute were thenceforth confined to very modest dimensions. Despite its chequered career, the venture gave the prince a valuable opportunity of identifying himself with the growing pride in the colonial empire, with that newborn imperialism which was a chief feature of the national sentiment during the close of his mother's reign.

Punctuality and a methodical distribution of his time enabled the prince to combine with his many public engagements due attention to domestic affairs, and at the same time he enjoyed ample leisure wherein to indulge his love of recreation at home and abroad. The education of his two sons, Albert Victor and George, called for consideration. In 1877 they were respectively thirteen and twelve years old. The prince had little wish to subject them to a repetition of his own strict and elaborate discipline. Nor had he much faith in a literary education for boys in their station. A suggestion that they should go to a public school, to Wellington College, met with Queen Victoria's approval; but the prince finally decided to send them as naval cadets to the Britannia training-ship at Dartmouth. He met his mother's criticism by assuring her that the step was experimental. But the prince was satisfied with the result, and in 1879 he pursued his plan of a naval training by sending the boys on a three years' cruise in H.M.S. Bacchante to the Mediterranean and the British colonies. The plan had the