the world of private banking

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THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
between four and seven per cent given by those (few) landed aristocrats whose
charitable expenditure has been studied.
The Role of King Edward VII
Victoria and Albert encouraged their children as well as their subjects to be
actively involved in philanthropy. From the early 1870s, this became an important
preoccupation of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. Like his father,
this middle-aged man needed a role and preferably one acceptable to his mother
and to the Prime Minister, William Gladstone. He was also aware of the need for
the monarchy to hold its popularity with the people, not only in Britain but in the
Empire. This awareness grew in the later years of his mother’s reign and throughout
his own (until his sudden death in 1910), as an emerging labour political and tradeunion
movement seemed to some to threaten the social order, and there were signs
of dissidence within the Empire. Edward believed strongly that voluntarism was
one of the bonds which held society together, and he resisted the emergence of
State welfare that was visible in the last years of his reign. He visited charitable
institutions during his visit to India in 1875–6 and became patron of and donor to
a host of imperial charities . In his case as in his mother’s the patronage was worth
more to the charities than the donations, since other donors scurried to give where
royalty had bestowed patronage.
Political calculation and self-preservation apart, there is every sign that Edward
became seriously interested in social questions and the promotion of philanthropy.
This was one thing he had in common with his wife, the future Queen Alexandra,
who was also an active patron of charities; though his mistress, Frances, Countess
of Warwick, a future socialist, also encouraged him to join her charitable ventures.
During his reign, despite his debts, Edward VII was patron of about 250 charities
and gave away about £9,000 per year, about ten per cent of his Privy Purse income,
to charities in Britain and the Empire and also in other European countries. Queen
Alexandra also gave lavishly to a variety of charities.
In his turn, Edward drew his associates into his favoured philanthropic
activities. His close contacts with City men of widely varying reputation are well
known. He met them not only at the race-course, the gambling table and the dining
room, but in the committee rooms of hospital and other charities. Their motives for
involvement in philanthropy were, of course, mixed. Association with Edward’s
favoured charities helped further to secure his favour and was also a passport to
social respectability for those members of his circles who knew their status to be
insecure among the established elite because they were social arrivistes, or Jews,
F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the 19th Century (London, 1971), p. 210.
Prochaska, Royal Bounty, pp. 119ff.
Thompson, English Landed Society, p. 123.