3-043-723 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Review of drilled schools by the Prince and Princess of Wales, Horticultural Society's Gardens, [London], 1872. 'The third annual inspection and review of boys instructed in military drill at the great schools of the Metropolitan Poor-Law Unions, in the Thames training-ships, in the London Industrial Homes and Refuges, and in the Royal Naval School at Greenwich, took place on Thursday week. It was honoured with the presence of their Royal Highnesses the Prince' and Princess of Wales...the march past of the schools commenced...The boys numbered about 4000, from six years of age to fourteen, belonging to twenty-two schools, including 750 from the Royal Naval School...The boys, having marched into the gardens, were paraded in charge of a sergeant-major of the Guards, and were drawn up in contiguous close columns along the west terrace. Here a dais was erected on which were placed chairs for the Prince and Princess of Wales...The Princess wore a blue dress and bonnet, trimmed with ostrich feathers...The Prince of Wales,...addressing the boys as "You, my young friends," commended them for their drill, and hoped they were as well up to the mark in their other studies..."God Bless the Prince of Wales" was sung by a thousand of the boys'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.