King Edward VII succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom in January, 1901. Before his accession, he made extensive tours of territories of the British Empire or under British control as the Prince of Wales. His visit to Canada was regarded as the first modern official visit to overseas territories by a member of the royal family, [1] and his visit to India was the first to the country by a future British monarch. [2] As King, he revived state visit to foreign countries as an important tool of diplomatic maneuver and royal influence, playing a significant role in establishing the modern form of state visit of the British monarchs. [3] Among his many visits to European countries were the first state visit by a reigning British monarch to a republic (France) and the first to Russia as well as some less formal ones that were not counted as full state visits (e.g. his visit to Austria in August – September 1903). [4] He did not make official tours of British territories outside Europe as King.
| Date | Country | Areas visited | Host |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27–30 April 1903 [66] [67] [lower-alpha 9] |  Italy | Rome | King Victor Emmanuel III |
| 1–4 May 1903 [69] [70] [71] [lower-alpha 10] |  France | Paris, Vincennes | President Émile Loubet |
| 8–10 April 1907 [72] [73] [74] [lower-alpha 11] |  Spain | Cartagena | King Alfonso XIII |
| 21–25 April 1908 [76] [77] |  Denmark | Copenhagen | King Frederick VIII |
| 26–27 April 1908 [77] [78] |  Sweden | Stockholm | King Gustaf V |
| 28 April – 2 May 1908 [79] [80] |  Norway | Christiania | King Haakon VII |
| 9–11 June 1908 [81] [82] [83] [lower-alpha 12] |  Russia | Reval | Emperor Nicholas II |
| 9–12 February 1909 [85] [86] |  Germany | Berlin | Emperor Wilhelm II |
| Date | Territory | Areas visited | Host |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8–13 April 1903 [87] [88] |  Gibraltar | Governor Sir George White | |
| 16–21 April 1903 [89] [90] |  Malta | Valletta | Governor Sir Charles Clarke |
| 13–17 April 1907 [91] [92] | Valletta, Attard | ||
| 21–25 April 1909 [93] [94] [95] | Governor Sir Henry Grant |
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
Prince George, Duke of Kent was a member of the British royal family, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary. He was a younger brother of kings Edward VIII and George VI. Prince George served in the Royal Navy in the 1920s and then briefly as a civil servant. He became Duke of Kent in 1934. In the late 1930s he served as an RAF officer, initially as a staff officer at RAF Training Command and then, from July 1941, as a staff officer in the Welfare Section of the RAF Inspector General's Staff. He was killed in the Dunbeath air crash on 25 August 1942.
Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 7th Duke of Richmond and Lennox, 2nd Duke of Gordon,, 7th Duke of Aubigny, styled Lord Settrington until 1860 and Earl of March between 1860 and 1903, was a British politician and peer.
Admiral Sir Frederick George Denham Bedford, was a senior Royal Navy officer and Governor of Western Australia from 24 March 1903 to 22 April 1909.
Robinson Duckworth was a British priest, who was present on the original boating expedition of 4 July 1862 during which Alice's adventures were first told by Lewis Carroll. He is represented by the Duck in the book, a play on his last name.
Sir John Hay Athole Macdonald, Lord Kingsburgh, KCB, PC, PRSSA, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish Conservative Party politician and later a judge.
Charles Harbord, 5th Baron Suffield, was a British peer, courtier and Liberal politician. A close friend of Edward VII, he served as a Lord of the Bedchamber and Lord-in-waiting to the King. He also held political office as Master of the Buckhounds under William Gladstone between February and July 1886.
General Sir Thomas Kelly-Kenny, was a British Army general who served in the Second Boer War.
Sir Henry Frederick Stephenson was a Royal Navy officer, courtier, and Arctic explorer.
Admiral Sir Wilmot Hawksworth Fawkes, was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth.
Admiral Sir Lewis Anthony Beaumont, was a Royal Navy officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth.
Castalia[Note A] was a 1,533 GRT twin-hulled paddle steamer that was built in 1874 by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Leamouth, London for the English Channel Steamship Company. She was acquired by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) in 1878 but had already been laid up by then and was not operated by the LCDR. In 1883, she was sold to the Metropolitan Asylums Board and converted to a hospital ship. She served until 1904 and was scrapped in 1905.
Apology (1871–1888) was a British Thoroughbred racemare who was the third winner of the Fillies' Triple Crown, winning The Oaks, 1,000 Guineas Stakes and St. Leger Stakes in 1874. Apology was bred and owned by the Reverend John William King, the vicar of Ashby de la Launde, whose ownership of the mare caused a minor scandal in the Church of England after Apology won the St. Leger Stakes. King ultimately had to resign his clerical appointments due to the scandal and died shortly thereafter of a chronic illness. Apology raced until she was five years old, winning the Ascot Gold Cup in 1876. She was retired from racing at the end of 1876 to become a broodmare initially for the widow of John King, and then for Clare Vyner. Apology was euthanised in 1888 after an extended illness.
Jennie Lee was a Victorian Era English stage actress, singer and dancer whose career was largely entwined with the title role in Jo, a melodrama her husband, John Pringle Burnett, wove around a relatively minor character from the Charles Dickens novel, Bleak House. She made her stage debut in London at an early age and found success in New York and San Francisco not long afterwards. Lee may have first starred in Jo around 1874 during her tenure at San Francisco's California Theatre, but her real success came with the play's London debut on 22 February 1876 at the Globe Theatre in Newcastle Street. Jo ran for many months at the Globe and other London venues before embarking for several seasons on tours of the British Isles, a return to North America, tours of Australia and New Zealand and later revivals in Britain. Reduced circumstances over her final years forced Lee to seek assistance from an actor's pension fund subsidised in part by proceeds from Royal Command Performances.
Colonel Sir Augustus Charles Frederick FitzGeorge, was a British Army officer and a relative of the British royal family. FitzGeorge was born in 1847 to Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, and his wife Sarah Fairbrother. His parents' marriage contravened the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and therefore invalid, thus FitzGeorge was ineligible to inherit the Dukedom of Cambridge.
