Just before we sailed for England came the news of Queen Victoria’s serious illness. Everyone knew, though no one liked to acknowledge, that recovery was problematical. Wireless telegraphy was still in its infancy, so we had no news between Bombay and Aden, where we arrived in the middle of the night. I was asleep in my berth when our ship anchored, and I shall never forget waking in the early dawn and hearing a man’s voice saying to a friend just outside my cabin, “She went off very quietly.” No need to ask who it was whose passing from earth had wrung the hearts of many nations, and not least of those who go down to the sea in ships.
People who remember those winter days need no description of their import, and those who are too young to recall them can never realise what it meant to feel as if a whole Empire had become one great orphaned family. Statesmen and soldiers had given place to their successors, poets, philosophers, and men of science had passed away, but for over sixty years the Queen had been the unchanging centre of our national life, and it seemed incredible that even she had laid down the burden of sovereignty, and would no longer share the joys and sorrows of her people.
And here I would end these wandering reminiscences, but must just record one tribute to her memory in which I was privileged to take part.
In the following May a number of women dressed in deep mourning assembled at 10 Downing Street, then the dwelling of the Prime Minister, Mr. Arthur Balfour. His sister Miss Balfour, Miss Georgina Frere, daughter of the late Sir Bartle Frere, and Lady Edward Cecil (now Lady Milner) had assembled us in order that we might establish a society for knitting more closely together British subjects dwelling in various parts of the Empire.
THE VICTORIA LEAGUE
We called it the Victoria League in memory of the great Queen-Empress under whose sway that Empire had extended to “regions Cæsar never knew.” The executive committee then elected was composed of the wives and sisters of Cabinet Ministers, of wives of leaders of the Opposition, and other representative ladies. Most unexpectedly, just before the meeting Lady Rayleigh (Mr. Balfour’s sister) informed me that I was to take the chair and that it was intended to appoint me first President. My breath was quite taken away, but there was neither time nor opportunity for remonstrance, and I concluded that I was chosen because one great object of the founders being to emphasise “no party politics,” it was thought wiser not to select a President whose husband was of Cabinet rank, and that though a Conservative I had the qualification of overseas experience.
The late Lady Tweedmouth, a Liberal, was appointed Vice-President, and shortly afterwards Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton, representing the Liberal Unionists, became Honorary Secretary. Later on Miss Talbot, now Dame Meriel, took the post of Secretary, which she held for fifteen years, and Mrs. Maurice Macmillan succeeded Miss Georgina Frere as Honorary Treasurer, a position which she still holds. Miss Drayton, O.B.E., is now our most efficient Secretary.
For myself I have been President for twenty-one years, and, thanks to the extraordinary kindness and capacity of my colleagues, those years have been full of interest and unshadowed by any disputes, despite the divergent politics of the directing committees. We have always borne in mind the purpose of the League so well summed up by Rudyard Kipling on its foundation, “the first attempt to organise sympathy.”
We have now 38 British Branches and 22 Overseas Affiliated Leagues, besides Allied Associations, and we are honoured by having the King and Queen as Patrons and the Prince of Wales and other members of the Royal Family as Vice-Patrons.
Men were soon added to our Councils, and we had two splendid Deputy Presidents in Sir Edward Cook and Sir James Dunlop-Smith, now, alas! both taken from us. But the twenty-one years of the League’s work lie outside the limits of these wandering recollections.