Telling the Story: HMS Galatea's Voyage to South Africa, 1867

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay examines Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh's visit to South Africa in 1867. Prince Alfred (1844–1900) was the second son of Queen Victoria and a career naval officer, who travelled not as a royal passenger but as Captain of the Royal Naval frigate HMS Galatea. Aboard were some 540 men and boys, from humble sailors to aristocratic equerries. How did contemporaries aboard and ashore interpret the voyage? Drawing upon a diverse range of primary sources, including photograph albums, shipboard journals, diaries, loyal addresses, newspaper reports and private as well as official correspondence, this essay argues that the story of this voyage was told in various ways. In particular, it was consciously represented, and understood, as a naval as well as a royal visit. In turn, this voyage was commemorated, and used, by individuals in and beyond the Cape for different purposes. For example, ‘Malays’ used the voyage as an opportunity to demonstrate both their distinctive ‘otherness’ as well as their ‘Britishness’. By examining such responses, we can better understand how the voyage touched people's lives, and in particular how it contributed to South African colonists’ closer sense of identification with both the British monarchy and Empire as well as the Royal Navy.