While Alfred might have mixed and matched his military uniforms, combining various German uniforms with British insignia, he seems to have treated his naval uniform with greater respect. His captain’s uniform was certainly his uniform of choice throughout his Australian tour—at official functions in port as well as aboard HMS Galatea. While to an extent this simply reflects the fact that Alfred visited Australia as a serving naval officer, and naturally was expected to wear his uniform, it also reflects his great pride in the navy.[35] The fact that most of the ‘carte-de-visite’ photographs circulating in the colonies depicted Alfred in naval uniform suggests that this is how Alfred himself wanted to be seen there.[36] In any case, this is certainly how many Australian colonists wanted to see him. Dozens of transparencies decorating buildings as well as flattering and unflattering cartoons published in the colonial press all depicted Alfred in naval uniform. When colonists noted that ‘we know him from his portrait’, they could have been describing Alfred’s uniform as much as his facial features.[37] Alfred’s decision not to wear his naval uniform on one occasion in northern Tasmania even drew press comment:
Had he but appeared in naval uniform when holding his levee on Thursday, he would certainly have gratified many, and particularly some old naval officers who feel prouder, if possible, of the cloth—the navy blue—since they have had a Prince of the blood Royal in the service.[38]
As this account suggests, the uniform was seen to make the man. More than any other factor, Alfred’s naval career confirmed his Britishness in the eyes of his Australian audience. Even the transparency decorating Sydney’s Prussian consulate made reference to Alfred’s maritime association, depicting Neptune escorting the prince over the ocean.[39] Alfred’s ‘true-blue’ loyalty to the Royal Navy helps to explain further why Australians did not find his German connections disquieting.
For all the apparent Britishness of the Royal Navy, however, it was the navy that gave Alfred much of his transnational experience. On HMS Galatea alone, Alfred visited five continents. Similarly, many Australian colonists first saw the world from (or below) the deck of a Royal Navy ship—as officers, crew, soldiers or transported convicts. Even free emigrants who travelled directly between Britain and Australia on commercial vessels often stopped off in other places en route. In short, for many British and Australian men and women in the mid to late nineteenth century, life was transnational.
Colonists liked to see Alfred dressed as a naval officer because the navy was seen as Britain’s ‘wooden walls’. By choosing a naval career, therefore, Alfred demonstrated his commitment to protect the Mother Country and her colonies. In 1859, at a time when the navy was trying to recruit men, ‘Admiral Punch’ pointed to the young Alfred, recently entered as midshipman on HMS Euryalus: ‘There, Boys! There’s an Example for You!’[40] Just as Alfred’s participation was seen to improve the navy, participation in the navy was seen to improve Alfred. As a fulsome article in a Tasmanian paper put it:
In selecting his profession Prince Alfred gave convincing proof that he ‘scorn’d luxurious ease’, and no one can look at him without being further convinced that he, young as he is…has ‘lived laborious days’. The result is a sound constitution, nerves firm as steel, an independent, self-reliant, candid spirit, a thorough knowledge of an honourable profession, and a laudable pride in the possession of that knowledge. He can navigate his course ashore as well as afloat, and would live and thrive in any condition of life. Even if stripped of his high rank he would ascend in the social scale, when a mere lordling or court puppet would sink or starve.[41]
By wearing his naval uniform in Australia, therefore, Alfred discarded the trappings of a prince and displayed the very qualities prized by colonists. While Alfred enjoyed many special privileges, his naval background did provide him with some common experience with gentlemen migrants to Australia.[42] Both spent months and years away from home, often in relatively Spartan conditions, exposed to the extremes of weather and reliant on letters and newspapers for news of home.[43] Alfred also seems to have shared many emigrants’ desire to leave the tensions of home and seek adventure abroad.[44]
[35] Alfred could also have been making amends for his earlier behaviour. Candler contrasts the rumour of him being told off for wearing mufti in South Africa (which he visited immediately before Australia) with his apparently blameless behaviour in Gibraltar; Candler Diary, Christmas Day 1867, p. 338. Naval discipline aboard HMS Galatea in the latter voyages (1869–71) seems to have been maintained strictly, according to the notebook of Lieutenant John William Ramsay (University of Cambridge Library, Manuscripts Collection, Add. 9279).
[36] In addition to numerous photographs in Australian and British collections, Alfred appears in naval uniform in two carte-de-visite photographs, dated 1858 and c. 1862 respectively, held in the National Library of South Africa (Cape Town Pictures, ARC 54 [6630] and Album 1 [5]), as well as in several photographs detailing his 1867 visit to Cape Town (photograph album, Wits University Library, Reference A1552). My thanks to Michele Pickover and Idah Makukele for sending me details of the Wits album.
[37] See, for example, ‘Australia Supplex and the “real” Australian Australian Ladies’ Ball; or, gin-uine “Blue Blood”’, Sydney Punch, vol. 8, 28 March 1868, p. 139, and vol. 7, 9 November 1867, p. 194.
[38] While decades later the duke was chastised for spending too little time on his naval duties, when he was a young man, the navy was clearly the centre of Alfred’s world; Van der Kiste and Jordaan, Dearest Affie, pp. 28, 40, 54–5; Cornwall Chronicle, 18 January 1868, p. 2.
[39] SMH, 23 January 1868, pp. 5–6.
[40] ‘Men for the fleet! Punch’, in M. Lemon (ed.) n.d., Punch: The first fifty years, London, p. 238.
[41] Cornwall Chronicle, 18 January 1868, p. 2.
[42] Numerous criticisms were made of Alfred’s tardiness and frequent expressions of boredom at official events—for example, Candler Diary, 29 November 1867, p. 301. Had he not been shot in March 1868, it is likely that these criticisms would have increased.
[43] In his diary entry for 2 December 1867 (pp. 312–13), Candler describes the duke joining in a conversation at the Melbourne Club about pests such as fleas and cockroaches. Alfred was clearly no stranger to physical discomfort while travelling.
[44] Van der Kiste and Jordaan, Dearest Affie, pp. 54–6.