A right royal occasion as King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visit Belfast (1903)

It was a brilliant occasion when the car containing King Edward VIII, Queen Alexandra and their daughter Princess Victoria, pulled up. in Donegall Square North and the Royal party walked through the gates of the half-finished City Hall up the long red carpet to unveil a statue of the late Queen Victoria.

Sir Daniel Dixon, Lord Mayor, received their Majesties and the King wore the uniform of Admiral of the Fleet, strode along the boarded walk followed by the Lord Lieutenant and other dignitaries in the background.

The streets of Belfast had been gaily decorated for the Royal visit and for weeks the Belfast News Letter carried advertisements for the sale of flags and decorations with J Robb, Watsons and Riddels being the most persistent.

A souvenir published by the News Letter in July 1903 to mark the visit of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra’s visit to Belfast. It was the occasion of the unveiling of the Queen Victoria statue at Belfast City Hall. Picture: News Letter archives/Darryl Armitage

Mortimer’s of Royal Avenue suggested you buy an umbrella in case it rained and business houses and shops along the route offered a view of the procession for a price, including the Scottish Provident Institution in Ocean Buildings.

Balconies and barricades were erected along the route by joiners, though there was a short strike when 30 men were told to turn up for work and only 10 were taken on.

The City Council refused to pay the others a day’s wages until a strike called by the Carpenters and Joiners Society made them reverse their decision.

By the 25th of the month all the decorations and barriers were in position, the College of Art had concealed the ugly gate pillars and hoardings round the half-built City Hall and the stage was set.

It was not King Edward’s first visit to Belfast, as a boy of eight he had accompanied his mother Queen Victoria and “Albert the Good” on August 11, 1849, when the Royal Yacht had anchored off Cultra; and the Queen had driven through the great arch especially erected for the occasion at the bottom of High Street.

She had walked through the Botanic Gardens and admired the colourful display of flowers before being escorted through Queen’s College, later to become the university.

It was an endorsement of the distinction she had conferred on the gardens in 1840 when, at the suggestion of the Marquis of Donegall, she had permitted the ‘Royal’ to be used in the name of these fine gardens, one of the first compliments paid to her Irish subjects.

She seems to have enjoyed her visit to Belfast and wrote in her diary, “the town was beautifully decorated with flowers, hangings and very fine triumphal arches, the galleries full of people and the reception, very hearty”.

The 1903 visit was Edward VII’s eighth to Ireland, he had accompanied his mother to the south of Ireland on August 29,1853 and in 1861 as Prince of Wales and a student of Cambridge, he had visited the army camp at the Curragh, Co Kildare.

In 1865 he visited Ireland again when he opened the Dublin International Exhibition and in April 1868, he came to Dublin to be installed as a Knight of the Order of St Patrick.

Another visit was in January 1871 and on April 8, 1885, Prince Edward with his wife Princess Alexandra, paid his second visit to Belfast where he received loyal addresses at the Ulster Hall.

It rained for much of the time and now he was back again for a visit to Dublin, Belfast, Londonderry, Sligo, Galway and Cork.

For most of July 1903, newspapers had been filled with the great Gordon Bennett International Motor Race of 100 miles around Dublin, which had attracted 12 competitors from America, Britain, France and Germany. Only half the cars finished the race which was won by a German Mercedes. Once the excitement of the motor race had died down, trouble flared in Dublin where meetings organised by the Lord Mayor to plan the King’s visit were disrupted by Maud Gonne McBride and her supporters.

Nevertheless in spite of disgraceful decisions not to present addresses of welcome from such towns as far apart as Armagh and Cork, the Royal visit to Dublin was an instant success, with a great bonfire lighting the night sky on the Hill of Howth, on Tuesday, July 21,1903, when he received an address of welcome on his arrival at Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire).

During his Dublin stay he visited Trinity College where he admired a trophy taken by Drake during the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

At 11.30 on the morning of Saturday, July 25, a special train left Amiens Street Station in Dublin and arrived at Newtownards at 2.30pm, where he inspected a company of the Royal Irish Rifles in Conway Square. In the Marquis’s Daimler the Royal party drove down Newtownards’ High Street past the old market cross, erected in 1636, defaced and damaged by rebels in 1653, but re-erected by the Borough of Newtownards in 1666, on his way to stay with the Marquis of Londonderry at Mount Stewart.

This was the first time the King had stayed at the home of one of his subjects, and set a fashion for a constant stream of important visits to Mount Stewart, including that of von Ribbontropp, Hitler’s future Foreign Minister.

There was an afternoon’s visit to the Dowager Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava; followed by a drive down the shores of Strangford Lough to Portaferry, with a trip across the lough to see Lord de Ros and the Wards of Strangford.

That same night there was a great bonfire on the top of Scrabo Hill fed by 500 barrels of tar.

The stage was set for a visit to Belfast on Monday, July 27, when a special train took the Royal party from Newtownards to the terminus of the Belfast and Co Down Railway, where the King was presented with a loyal address. In attendance with the Royal pair were the Lord Lieutenant, the Abercorns, the Dudleys, Shaftesburys, Annesleys and Castlereagh.

From an early hour the streets of Belfast along the route had been crammed with people anxious for a glimpse of the Royal party. There was a special stand in the City Hall grounds for old soldiers and the Board of Guardians gave the inmates of the poorhouse entertainment in the form of an “at home”.

Then it was over the Queen’s Bridge and part of Ann Street, along Victoria Street and down High Street, round by Castle Place and Donegall Place to arrive at 12.30pm for their Majesties and Princess Victoria to be escorted by the Lord Mayor, Sir Daniel Dixon and the Town Clerk, Sir Samuel Black, up the boardwalk and red carpet to the black draped statue of his late mother, the late Queen Victoria,

Only one address of welcome was read before their Majesties from the city, council, and enclosed in an 18ct gold casket with its Celtic design and arms of Ireland, made by Gibson of Castle Place.