BREAKING CHINA Bluejackets and white Australians in the Boxer Rebellion
The late Queen’s demise meant that the Duke’s father became King Edward VII. One imperial commitment that he immediately honoured was to despatch his second son, George, to far-off Melbourne. The Duke and his Duchess, Mary, embarked on a seven-week voyage aboard the royal yacht Ophir. Just days after stepping ashore, the Duke addressed Parliament at Melbourne’s Exhibition Building.
There were two reasons, he explained, why ‘the King, my dear father’ had consented to separating the family during this period of loss and turmoil. First, King Edward had been ‘moved by his sense of the loyalty and devotion, which prompted the generous aid afforded by all the colonies in the South African war’ – otherwise known as the Boer War (1899–1902). ‘It is also His Majesty’s wish,’ continued the Duke, ‘to acknowledge the readiness with which the ships of
