CHAPTER XI
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AUSTRALIA
Mr. Hare’s account of our August Party in 1890 mentions the reason of its being the last for some time. My husband had been already offered the Governorship of Bombay and would have liked it for many reasons, but was obliged to decline as the climate might have been injurious after an attack of typhoid fever from which he had not long recovered. He was then appointed Paymaster-General, an unpaid office which he held for about a year. The principal incident which I recollect in this connection was a lengthened dispute between his Department and the Treasury over a sum of either two pounds or two shillings—I think the latter—which had gone wrong in an expenditure of thirty-five millions. In the end Jersey came to me and triumphantly announced that the Paymaster-General’s Department had been proved to be in the right. How much paper, ink, and Secretary’s time had gone to this conclusion I cannot say. Postage being “On Her Majesty’s Service” would not come into the reckoning.
WAR OFFICE RED TAPE
We had one other experience of pre-war War Office methods, but that was many years later. A rumour arrived in Middleton village that the soldier son of one of our labourers had had his head blown off. As there was no war proceeding at the time, we could not think how this accident had happened, and went to ask the parents where their son was stationed. They had no clear idea, but after a long talk remembered that they had received a photograph of his regiment with the Pyramids in the background. Armed with this information we approached the War Office and ultimately elicited that the poor youth had not lost his head, but had died of fever in Egypt, when arose the question of certain pay due to him. The War Office, with an insatiable thirst for information, would pay nothing until elaborate forms were filled up with the names and addresses of all the brothers and sisters. These proved to be scattered over the face of the Empire, and as the parents could neither read nor write, endless visits to them were necessary before we could find out enough to fill in the forms. Before this was accomplished I had to leave home and one of my daughters took charge.
At last she wrote that the money was really being paid to the old father and would be deposited in the Post Office. Knowing that he was very shaky, I wrote back begging that she would get him to sign a paper naming his heir, but before this was done he suddenly fell down dead, leaving the money in the Post Office, and my daughter corresponded on alternate days with the General Post Office and the War Office before she could get it out. Then some more money was found to be due, and the War Office said they could not pay it until they had certificates from the sexton and the undertaker who had buried the poor old man. I was back by the time these were procured, and lo and behold! one spelt his name Hitchcox and one Hitchcocks. Foreseeing another lengthened correspondence, I enclosed the form with a letter in Jersey’s name vouching for the fact that they referred to the same person but that the villagers spelt the name in two different ways. Fortunately the War Office felt that they were now sufficiently acquainted with the family biography and paid up. No wonder a plethora of clerks was needed even in pre-war days.
To return to our own affairs. The late Lord Knutsford, then Colonial Secretary, in the summer of 1890 asked my husband if he would accept the Governorship of New South Wales, and he consented. Great stress was laid on our not telling anyone before the Queen had approved, and we were most conscientious, though I do not believe that other people keep such offers equally secret from all their friends and relatives. It was rather inconvenient as we wanted to invite my brother Rupert to accompany us as A.D.C. and he was already committed to another appointment abroad. As soon as the telegram announcing the Queen’s approval arrived, I sent a footman to look for him at two or three addresses saying that he must find Captain Leigh somehow. He brought him back in triumph, having caught him in the street. Lord Ancram and my cousin Harry Cholmondeley were the other A.D.C.s, and George Goschen, now Lord Goschen, Private Secretary.
BALMORAL
Just before we were due to start, the Queen sent for us to Balmoral to say good-bye. We there met amongst others the Duke of Clarence, the only time I ever saw him, and I thought him a singularly gentle, modest young man. Some old gentleman had lately left him a long gold and turquoise chain which had belonged to Marie Antoinette. He told the Queen about it, and, with genuine surprise, said he could not think why it had been left to him. Her Majesty expressed the greatest interest in anything which had belonged to Marie Antoinette, so he ran upstairs and brought it down for his grandmother’s inspection. He talked of his voyage to Australia, and said he was sorry that he had been too young to appreciate all he had seen as he should have done. I remember the late Admiral Lord Clanwilliam, who had the supervision of the young Princes when they were on board the Bacchante, saying that no boys had ever given him less trouble, and that Prince George (the present King) was equal to boys a year older than himself.
When we went to Australia Lord Hopetoun was already there as Governor of Victoria, and Lord Kintore as Governor of South Australia, while Lord Onslow reigned in New Zealand. These, like Jersey, had all previously been Lords-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Her Majesty said to us, “As soon as I get a nice Lord-in-Waiting Lord Salisbury sends him off to govern a Colony”; to which my husband aptly replied, “You see, Ma’am, how well you brought us up!” A remark rewarded by a gracious smile.