Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/605

 range of knowledge, saw imprudence in Queen Victoria's denial to him of all political responsibility.

On the fall of Lord Rosebery’s ministry and the accession to office of Lord Salisbury, the prince illustrated his attitude to the party strife by inviting the out-going and the in-coming ministers to meet at dinner at Marlborough House. Other men of distinction were there, including the shahzcda, second son of theamir of Afghan- istan, who was visiting this country. The entertainment proved thoroughly har- monious under the cheerful inﬂuence of the prince. A littlelatcr, when Lord Salisbury‘s administration was ﬁrmly installed, the prince’: right to receive as matter of course all foreign dcspatches was at length formally conceded. Like the members of the cabinet he was now in-

Li'3.§_..n.~.. vested with a ‘cabinet’ key to ‘private information is daily circulated among ministers by the foreign oﬁice. The privilege came too tardily to have much educational effect, but it gave the prince a better opportunity than he had yet enjoyed of observing the inner routine of government, and it diminished a veteran grievance. Yet his main ener- gies were, even more conspicuously than of old, distributed over society, sport, and philanthropy, and in spite of his new rivileges he remained an unofficial onloo er in the political arena.
 * "'f§;; the oﬂicial pouches in which

In some directions his philanthropic interest seemed to widen. The ardour and m,,$u,, energy with which at the end
 * l of the nineteenth century the

problems of disease were pursued caught his alert attention, and he gave many proofs of his care for medical research. He regularly performed the duties of president of St. Bartholomew‘s Hospital, and learned much of hospital management there and elsewhere. He did what he could to encourage the study of consumption, and the investigation of cancer interested him. When he laid the foundation stoneof the new wing of Brompton Consumption Hospitalin 1881, he asked, if the disease were preventable, why it was not prevented. On 21 Dec. 1888 he called a meeting at Marlborough House to found the National Society for the Prevention of Consumption. It was, too. under his personal auspices that the fund was formed on 18 June 1889 to commemorate the heroism of Father Damien, the Belgian missionary who heroically sacrilied his life to the lepers of the Sandwich Islands. A statue of Father Damion which was set up at Kalawayo was one result of the movement. Another was the National Leprosy Fund for the treatment and study of the disease, especially in India. On 13 Jan. 1890 the prince presided at a subscription dinner in London in support of this fund, and to his activity was in part attributable the foundation of the Albert Victor Hospital for leprosy at Calcutta He was always on good terms with doctors. Through his friendship with Sir Joseph Fayror, who had accompanied him to India, he was oﬂered and accepted the unusual compliment of being made honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians on 19 July 1897. He received not only the diploma but a model of the goldheaded cane in possession of the college, whose line of successive owners in- cluded Radcliﬁe and the chief physicians of the eighteenth century.

In the summer of 1897 the prince took an active part in the celebration of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. The ‘Vi_i|i:t..:II"ia’s queen gave public expression §"'“°“" of her maternal regard, which yubllee, rssn. no differences on political or private matters effectually diminished, by creating in his behalf a new dignity— that of Grand Master and Principal Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. In all the public festivities the prince ﬁlled a chief part. Among the most elaborate private entertainments which he attended was a fancy dress ball given by his friends the duke and duchess of Devonshirs at Devon- shiro House, where the splendours recalled the prince’s own effort of the same kind at Marlborough House in 1874.

But the prince was responsible for a lasting memorial of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in the form of a scheme for permanently helping the London hospitals to lessen their burden of debt. On 5 Feb. 1897 the prince in honour of the The ﬁnd. jubilee inaugurated a fund. for subscriptions from a shilling upwards. The prince became president of the general council, and a meeting at Marlborough House christened the fund ‘ The Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund for London.’ Success was at once achieved. Within a year the donations amounted to l87,000l., and the annual subscriptions to 22,0501. The fund continued to ﬂourish under the prince's and his friends’ guidance until his accession to the throne. when it was renamed ‘King Edward VII Hospital Fund,‘ and his son took his place as president. The eﬁort has