While Alfred’s genealogy and his tastes confirmed him as a British prince, he developed associations with other nations. In 1862, for example, Alfred was proposed as the new king of Greece. This honour reflected his German as well as his British bloodline. German princes, who were often relatively poor and landless, were often put forward to occupy vacant European thrones. Indeed, after the British Government turned down the Greeks’ request for Alfred, his German Uncle Ernest of Saxe-Coburg Gotha was placed on the throne.^[10] While Alfred never became a Greek prince, arguably he always remained a German one. Although his mother’s father’s family had lived mostly in Britain since the early eighteenth century, the rest of his family was based in Germany. His father, Prince Albert, left Saxe-Coburg Gotha to marry Queen Victoria, and in turn Alfred became heir to this duchy. Alfred’s future as well as his past thus lay more in Germany than in Britain.

Alfred’s German identity was more than a little problematic in contemporary Britain. As Richard Williams pointed out, since the accession of the Hanoverians to the British throne in 1714, complaints were made that the royal family was more German than British. Queen Victoria was judged to have made things even worse, first by her marriage to a German prince, and, latterly, by encouraging her children to marry German spouses. For example, her beloved eldest daughter, Vicky, married the heir to the Prussian throne in 1858. Arguably, only after Albert’s sudden death in 1861 did the crown’s Englishness become secure. Doubts, however, remained. The Duke of Edinburgh’s first voyage to Australia in 1867–68 was sandwiched between two episodes of bitter anti-German and in particular anti-Prussian feeling in Britain. In the 1864 Schleswig-Holstein affair and the 1869–70 Franco-Prussian War, Queen Victoria was widely criticised for allegedly attempting to influence British foreign policy to support Prussia.^[11] In many ways, Alfred’s visit provided a timely opportunity to demonstrate the royal family’s Britishness.

Alfred’s behaviour in Australia both supported and complicated these claims to Britishness—for while the prince emphasised his Scottish links, he also drew attention to his German connections. In Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, for example, the duke warmly greeted liedertafel: male torchbearers dressed in German national costumes, who serenaded him with German songs. Indeed, in Melbourne, Alfred jocularly urged the mayor to finish his long speech so that he could go and listen to the liedertafel: ‘Cut it short, Mr Mayor—the Germans are burning their fingers.’^[12] Despite this display of partiality, and even though it allegedly caused ‘great jealousy in certain press circles, because there was to be a “Leidertafel” [sic] and not an Australasian-tafel as well’, Australians apparently accepted Alfred’s expressions of his Germanness without public comment.^[13] This even extended to the prince’s adoption of German military uniform. In Sydney, Alfred wore ‘the uniform of a general officer of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’ at the local military review.^[14] At the Adelaide and Melbourne reviews, he dressed as a Prussian colonel.^[15] For a British prince (and captain in the Royal Navy) to take part in British military ceremonies wearing German uniform (even if, as heir to a German duchy, he was entitled to wear such uniform) seems astonishing. The adoption of Prussian uniform in particular might have been expected to raise a few eyebrows. While Saxe-Coburg Gotha (Alfred’s ancestral home) remained an obscure German state, Prussia (with which he was linked only through his sister’s marriage) was fast becoming Britain’s economic and military rival. In Australia at this time, however, loyalty to Germany was evidently seen as compatible with loyalty to Britain.^[16] If colonists were worried by such behaviour, they did not express this concern publicly. One exception was a satirical sketch made by George Gordon McCrae, entitled ‘A Saylore on Horse-backe, ye Adelaide Troops are reviewed bye a Prussian Colonel’.^[17] In it, a stiff Alfred, resplendent in shiny Prussian uniform, sits astride a gawky steed, while HMS Galatea’s presence in the background gently reminds the viewer of the prince’s proper, British occupation. This exception might, however, prove the rule: McCrae’s drawing was not published, and it seems to have reflected a minority viewpoint, or at least one that was not aired publicly.

Even the most anti-British elements within the colonies appeared unperturbed by these dual identities. Sydney’s Freeman’s Journal drew particular attention to Alfred’s German connections, describing him as a ‘young Anglo-German gentleman’ who probably had an ear for music, since ‘most Germans have some’. This paper, which a few months later proudly described its policy as remaining ‘truly and unflinchingly, Irish, National, and Catholic’, was being deliberately provocative in describing the son of the British monarch as a foreigner. It nevertheless accepted that Alfred could combine English identity with German, in the same article referring to him as ‘this young Englishman’. For nationalist Irishmen, of course, an Englishman was as much a foreigner as a German. The Freeman’s Journal therefore distinguished its constituency from ‘Anglo-Saxons’, whom it characterised as having ‘an innate vulgarity’.^[18] Pro-British sources also noted, however, that Alfred combined English and foreign elements. According to the British émigré Samuel Curtis Candler, who was soon to become friendly with the duke in Melbourne, ‘his pronunciation is peculiar, something between that of an English gentleman and of a foreigner who had been taught English perfectly’.^[19]

For the Freeman’s Journal and its Irish Catholic constituency, there was no contradiction in Alfred being English and German. Instead, the paper distanced itself from those who were ‘preparing to give him a reception betokening the esteem in which they hold their sovereign’ (my italics). The problem lay not with multiple national identities, but with the assumption that as the son of the British monarch, Alfred should be worshipped by Australian colonists: ‘We are not aware that the aforementioned sovereign has done anything particular to win the gratitude of the Australians.’ Rather, Alfred was simply a ‘young stranger’ whose presence demanded respect, due not to his royal birth but for his polite behaviour: ‘[T]hough we feel no inclination to honour the coming guest simply because he happens to be a prince, we would, at all events, respect him, because we know he is a gentleman.’^[20] Candler also emphasised the importance of Alfred’s behaviour as a gentleman, and claimed that it was a welcome surprise to learn that ‘one may sometimes put one’s trust in Princes’.^[21] As we will see below, Alfred also put much stock in appearing as a gentleman.

Figure 4.3: A Saylore on Horse-backe, ye Adelaide Troops are reviewed bye a Prussian Colonel, 1868.

George Gordon McCrae. Drawing: pen, ink and wash. National Library of Australia: nla.pic-an6330424

Alfred’s expression of dual loyalty was accepted in colonial Australia because colonists recognised, and to a certain extent approved of, the existence of multiple loyalties. In other words, Alfred was not alone in combining loyalty to Britain with loyalty (or at least affection) for another state or culture. German–British loyalty was particularly comprehensible in South Australia, which boasted a large German immigrant population (although, as many migrants had fled religious persecution and economic marginalisation in Pomerania, it was a population that owed little gratitude to the Prussian State). Just as British colonists in Tasmania gave the duke a wheelbarrow that combined Australian blackwood with the British heraldic flowers of rose, thistle and shamrock, the German colonists in South Australia gave Alfred ‘a well-executed imitation of a flaming torch made of rope in blackwood, and inlaid with thirty-two different species of colonial woods, which were supplied by Dr. Schomburg of the Botanic Gardens’.^[22] Both gifts were emblematic of colonists’ assertion of the botanical metaphor—namely that the seeds of the old country flourished in colonial soil.

Such a relaxed attitude to dual German–British loyalty would not last long. After Prussia’s 1870 victory in the war with France and its emergence as the leading state within the new German Empire, many Australians, like Britons, came to see it as an aggressor state. In 1867, however, while the Pax Britannica still held, and Prussia’s military threat to Britain was not yet explicit, the adoption of foreign military uniforms was not necessarily associated with any particular ideological commitment or conflict of national interests. People did put on and discard uniforms more casually in this period than later in the nineteenth century. This was probably even truer in the colonies than at home (it is hard to imagine Alfred escaping public criticism had he worn a Prussian uniform while reviewing troops in London, for example). In Australia, where the European population faced many invasion scares but to date no real attack, the wearing of foreign uniforms offered an amusing diversion for the general public as well as the prince.

In fact, the wearing of uniforms was seen to have an aesthetic as well as a military function. At the duke’s entry to Melbourne, for example:

The prince also displayed his love of military-style dress when he landed in Sydney wearing ‘light trousers with a black military stripe’.^[24] Moreover, Alfred was not afraid to mix and match German and British insignia; in Adelaide therefore, his Prussian colonel’s uniform was ‘ornamented by the badge of KG, and other marks of honourable distinction’.^[25] This reflected the prevailing sartorial convention that ‘more was more’, as well as Alfred’s own love of ornamentation. In Melbourne, observers commented on the gold rings the duke wore:

While it might seem far-fetched for a British prince to emulate a gold-digger’s taste in jewellery, in fact, Alfred seemed to enjoy following colonial fashion (or at least, what he perceived was colonial fashion). Sailors, like gold-diggers, were also known for wearing ostentatious jewellery and clothing ashore. Perhaps, like these men, Alfred relished the opportunities provided in the colonies to escape naval discipline.

Similarly, the extravagant dress worn by NSW ministers at the duke’s arrival drew attention. The ministers’ decision to order elaborate uniforms at a cost of £70 each was ridiculed as a ‘childish whim’ by the Freeman’s Journal, which attributed it to a desire to do proper honour to the son of ‘their Queen’.^[27] These costumes, however, demonstrated colonial pride as much as individual vanity or loyalty to Britain, for the British Government had recently given colonial ministers the same status as ministers ‘at Home’, which meant that they were entitled to wear the same dress. By wearing these costumes in the duke’s presence, then, New South Wales’ ministers demonstrated their equality with their British counterparts.

Many other colonists wore costumes during the duke’s visit. Some, such as the members of the liedertafel, wore national dress to express their identification with their homeland. For others, dressing up in foreign outfits provided an opportunity to display past, future or just wished-for transnational experience. At the Civic Fancy Dress Ball held to welcome Prince Alfred to Melbourne, for example, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Russian and Dutch costumes, including several military and naval uniforms, were on display. This reflected the international nature of the gathering—with several foreign consuls present—but also the outward-looking orientation of the Australian colonists themselves. The prominence of foreign naval costumes at local entertainments also reflected elite colonists’ frequent contact with visiting navies. Dinners and dances for the officers were held in gentlemen’s clubs such as the Melbourne Club as well as in private homes. These visits provided amusement for the visitors, boosted hostesses’ egos and facilitated cultural exchange. To commemorate the 1870 visit of the Italian frigate Garibaldi, which brought the Duke of Genoa to Tasmania, for example, F. Fiorani inscribed a musical score with a dedication to the writer, artist and musician Louisa Anne Meredith. Such naval visits also appealed to the general public. One month after the Duke of Edinburgh departed Sydney, for example, the local papers were full of enthusiasm for the visiting French transport Aveyron. A report published in the Illustrated Sydney News suggested that Australian men and women were as keen to visit a French warship as a British one.^[28] Indeed, when it came to public entertainment, any nation’s warships would do, and the bigger the better.

Just as British colonists greeted foreign visitors enthusiastically, many non-British colonists queued up to honour Alfred. Loyal addresses were presented to him from ‘the Hungarian residents of New South Wales’, for example, as well as from the Chinese community in Castlemaine, Victoria.^[29] Presenting loyal addresses was a well-established way for minority groups to assert their identity in a non-threatening way. This was particularly important for the Chinese community, which was viewed with much suspicion in Australia, as elsewhere. Still, their right to present their own address (albeit with the assistance of a trusted European translator) to the son of the British monarch was widely accepted, and exercised.^[30] The press attention given to loyal addresses provided excellent publicity for many of these groups. Indeed, the Melbourne Chinese community’s celebrations of the duke’s visit attracted great interest, not least from the duke himself. So too in Sydney, the decoration of the steamer Yamba to resemble a dragon was widely admired.^[31]

This image of multiple ethnic groups coexisting in harmony was, however, overly simplistic. The Irish Catholic community in particular was disaffected. Despite the fact that Catholics represented approximately one-quarter of the colonial population, the Irish Catholic clergy stayed away from official functions during the royal visit. While the Freeman’s Journal expressed the hope that ‘the day is not distant when the cause of the continued absence of the Catholic body from public receptions will be removed and they will be able to join with these acts of loyalty with their fellow colonists’, such hope was in fact premature.^[32] For while transparencies displaying Irish greetings such as ‘Ceade mille failtha’ welcomed the duke, other messages stirred up sectarian hatred.^[33] Protestant Orangemen’s provocative reference to the Battle of the Boyne in one Melbourne display exacerbated tensions with Irish Catholics, and led to a fatal shooting. Tensions worsened with the shooting of the duke at Clontarf in March 1868. While this attempted assassination was the work of one unbalanced Irish Australian, it was initially blamed on the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish republican movement. Moreover, in the eyes of the rabidly anti-Catholic NSW Colonial Secretary, Henry Parkes, all Irish Catholic Australians were potential Fenians. So, far from providing an opportunity to cement their ties to the polity, the duke’s visit to Australia only isolated Irish Catholics further.^[34] In colonial Australia, then, maintaining loyalty to Britain and Ireland (or Australia and Ireland) clearly proved more problematic than maintaining loyalty to Britain and Germany. Not all combinations of national loyalty worked in the Australian context.