In September some correspondence between King Edward and the Lord Mayor, suggesting the establishment of a Colonial and Indian Institute to commemorate the Queen’s Jubilee, was published, and excited a great deal of interest both at home and in the Colonies. A public subscription was opened at the Mansion-House; and later in the same month His Majesty, having been informed that a movement was on foot to present him with a testimonial in recognition of his services in connection with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, wrote to request that any fund subscribed might be devoted to the furtherance of the Imperial Institute, and a great deal of his time that autumn was dedicated to this scheme.
Queen Alexandra in her Robes as Doctor of Music
From a Photograph by Chancellor, Dublin
The King in 1886 also gave his patronage to two great engineering achievements, by opening the Mersey Tunnel and by laying the first stone of the Tower Bridge. It is interesting to note in this connection that His Majesty has long been an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and when he attended their annual dinner in the same year, he made an amusing speech, in which he attempted to picture what sort of a world ours would be without engineers.
One of the busiest years ever spent by the King and Queen Alexandra was 1887, when Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee was celebrated. To His Majesty was left the responsibility of a great number of the arrangements, and on him fell almost entirely the reception and entertainment of the foreign Royal personages who attended the splendid ceremony in the Abbey as Queen Victoria’s guests. In many cases the King was obliged to welcome in person the Royal visitor to London, and he was indefatigable in his efforts to make everything go off as smoothly and successfully as possible, while it need hardly be said that he took a very prominent part next to Queen Victoria in all the Jubilee functions.
It was in this year that His Majesty was appointed Honorary Admiral of the Fleet, a distinction which gave him much gratification, for it was his first definite official link with the sea service which he had selected as the profession of his younger son, and in which his elder son had received an early training—a link which was destined to be still further strengthened after His Majesty’s accession, as will be related hereafter.