1849

6

OF PERSONAL PRAISE.

227

the Prince's praises, however just, so loudly sounded by persons going about under an authority granted' by the Prince. One mischievous person,' he said, 'in even the best disposed meeting, might make this a foundation for much that would be disadvantageous to the plan and disagreeable to your Royal Highness.' He then went on to deprecate, as premature, the notion which had been mooted of a public meeting in London, adding, 'A meeting in a private room of some of the leading manufacturers and practical men of science, for the purpose of ample discussion, is, of course, a different thing altogether.' In reply the Prince wrote as follows:

< My dear Phipps,-I have to acknowledge three letters from you. I shall begin with the last in answering them, viz. Exhibition. You are quite right in the view you take about public meetings, and I would beg you to remind Mr. Cole that the strictest privacy was originally observed, and to caution him not to be drawn away by degrees from the original position. Praising me at meetings looks as if I were to be advertised and used as a means of drawing a full house, &c. &c. Mr. Cole excused himself about Dublin, and calls it an unexpected occurrence that newspaper reporters should have been present, and says the proceedings were incorrectly reported. In London additional caution will be required. Your letter to the Lord Mayor is quite right.'

The letter then diverges to a topic which, at all times, occupied much of the Prince's attention.

The active interest which he had shown in all measures for raising the condition of the working classes was, by this time, so fully recognised, that his advice and countenance were sought in the formation and management of every

228

PRINCE'S ANXIETY FOR WELFARE

1849

society which had this object in view. The improvement of their dwellings he regarded as a first essential. Give them homes, he thought, to which they may be drawn by cheerfulness and comfort, and the boon will tell in improved health, sobriety, and domestic peace. It is to one of the Societies devoted to this object (The Labourer's Friend Society) that the Prince refers in the conclusion of the same letter:

Now to the working classes. The Report is not so unsatisfactory as the items you have marked would make it appear. The Society professes to establish models only. These have been completed and have answered. Though the subscriptions for the general fund are very small, those for the different lodging-houses are large and have nearly covered the expense. The allotments are certainly too dearly managed. To improve the lodgings of the poorer classes in London, however desirable, just now would clearly be impossible for any Society. I feel like you that it is dreadful to see the sufferings at this moment, and to know that there is a Society which professes to work improvement, and to see none performed. I don't see what can well be done. When we get home I might see Lord Ashley and talk the matter over with him.'

A few days afterwards the Prince recurs to the subject:

My dear Phipps,

Now to the working classes (so called). The improvement of their condition can be aimed

at practically only in four ways :—

1. Education of the children with industrial training.

2. Improvement of their dwellings.

3. Grant of allotments with the cottages.

4. Savings' Banks and Benefit Societies (if POSSIBLE, managed by themselves), particularly on sound economical

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OF THE WORKING CLASSES.

229

principles. I shall never cease to promote these four objects wherever and whenever I can, and you need not be afraid of urging the subject with me. I am just considering what can be done here, where the cottage accommodation borders on the Irish. The price allowed for a cottage is 15l.!! Osborne has not hitherto been pressed on, because of the labour-market, which is another important consideration; Mr. Cubitt judging correctly that after the excitement which the great work must produce on the labour-market, we should keep the other works in hand, in order to spin out the employment and let it down by degrees, whilst building cottages, besides the great works, would have increased the temporary demand and stopped it suddenly afterwards.

'Allotments are getting pretty general.

I see from the Builder that the bricklayers, masons, and carpenters, &c. &c. of London have established a Society on the plan of the Servants' Benevolent Association and find general support. When I come to England, more about all this.

'Balmoral, 20th September, 1849.'

'Ever yours truly,

'A.

On the 27th of September the Queen and Prince left Balmoral for Osborne, halting for a night, on the way, at Howick, on a visit to Lord Grey. A few days afterwards they received a severe shock in the sudden death of Mr. Anson, the Prince's first Secretary, and, afterwards, Privy Purse. 'Mr. Anson,' Lady Lyttelton writes (9th November),

At Balmoral, as well as on the other Royal estates, the cottages are models of fitness, convenience, and comfort. Mr. Chadwick long ago said of them:-If all the cottage property in the United Kingdom were maintained in the same condition as that of Her Majesty and the Prince Consort, the death-rate would be reduced more than one-third, or nearly one-half. It would be as if every third year there were a jubilee, and there were no sickness and no deaths.'

230

DEATH OF MR. ANSON.

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is dead! Alas! that I should have to tell of his death; whom I thought, but three years ago, the image of health and youth, and power of mind and body. ... It was yesterday. He had a slight cold; sat down at near one o'clock, complaining of a sudden pain over his eye; and fell down senseless. He never recovered consciousness, and died at three.' Mrs. Anson was beside him when he was seized. 'She has borne,' the Queen writes to King Leopold, almost the greatest shock and trial which any human being could; she was alone with him when he fell down and never recovered his consciousness-and nothing worse can ever happen to her.' To lose thus suddenly, in the vigour of manhood, the loyal and devoted friend and servant of ten years was a heavy blow. Every face,' says Lady Lyttelton in the letter already cited, 'shows how much has been felt; the Prince and Queen in floods of tears, and quite shut up. It is to them a heavy loss indeed; irreparable. I mean that so warm a friend they can hardly expect to find again, in ever so trustworthy and efficient a servant and minister.' Four days later she writes- The Prince's face is still so sad and pale and grave, I can't forget it.' It was thus that he announced his loss to Baron Stockmar:

'Osborne, 9th October, 1849.

'Dear Stockmar,-I meant to have written to you to-day a long political letter in reply to your welcome lines of the 26th ult., but now I cannot. I have just had news of Anson's sudden death. Only yesterday evening I had a letter from himself, cheerful and well written. This being quarter-day, he intended going to London to pay the pensioners. He had a slight cold, and suddenly fell senseless from his chair, and did not come round again; in two hours he was dead. The poor wife is inconsolable.

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OPENING OF COAL EXCHANGE.

231

'To me the blow is very painful, and the loss immense in a hundred ways.

'If you could come to me now, I should regard it as a great act of friendship.'

The loss was indeed heavy; but not, as Lady Lyttelton said, irreparable. A man so good and able as the Prince will always draw good and able men around him, and, by infusing his own spirit into them, secure the frank devotion of their best energies to his service. Such men the Prince found in Colonel Phipps, who took Mr. Anson's place as Privy Purse, and Colonel (afterwards General) Grey, who became his Secretary, filling these offices respectively down to the Prince's death. They were both men of strong character and exceptional ability, and no Prince was ever served by truer friends, or more capable officers.

The ceremony of the opening of the New Coal Exchange on the 30th of October of this year, though robbed of much of its interest by the absence of the Queen, who was prevented by an attack of chicken-pox from fulfilling her intention of opening it in person, was memorable as the occasion of first bringing into public notice the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. The Royal party went from Westminster to the City by the river in the Royal barge, rowed by twentyseven watermen. Lady Lyttelton writing, a few days afterwards, to Mrs. Gladstone, has preserved the incidents of the day in one of her vivid word-pictures:

It was

St.

'You want to know about the Royal City visit? magnificent, and delightful to see and hear. To me, who have little experience in such scenes, it was really most impressive. The weather was Italian-not a bit of fog, or cold, or wind. Paul's seen as clearly as a country church up to the cross, and on the cupola sat many people. Every inch of ground, every bridge, roof, window, and as many vessels of all sorts as could lie on the river, leaving our ample passage clear, were covered,