Prince Alfred’s 1867 visit to Australia was a total disaster
The first royal tour to our shores in 1867 was met with riots and fires and an assassination attempt on Queen Victoria’s son.
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If King Charles III comes down under, he will be the first ever reigning king to visit Australia.
Queen Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI, was set to visit Australia in 1949, until poor health kept him away.
It was the Queen herself who became the first ever sitting monarch to grace our shores in 1954, following numerous previous visits from junior members of the royal family.
The first such visit, in 1867, was a total disaster.
When the young Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, rolled into Melbourne, he had no idea that his Victorian visit would see two riots, two disastrous fires and the tragic deaths of three children in a parade float.
But there was even worse to come on the royal visit Australia should prefer to forget.
Prince of the seas
Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was the son of Queen Victoria and an accomplished seaman in the Royal Navy.
In October 1867 his ship Galatea docked in Adelaide and 23-year-old Alfred embarked on the Australian colony’s first royal visit.
In late November the ship arrived at Melbourne where the Prince laid the cornerstone for Melbourne Town Hall.
But things soon took a sour turn.
A ballroom decorated to welcome the Prince was adorned with a portrait of William of Orange defeating the Catholics at Ireland’s Battle of the Boyne of 1690.
Local Catholics took it as a slap in the face and, as the Prince was received in the hall, Catholics gathered outside to heckle and throw stones.
Somebody retaliated with gunfire and, in a subsequent violent exchange, a young Catholic was killed.
The astonished Prince was badly shaken.
He cancelled a scheduled public appearance at a Melbourne ball over security fears.
The ill-fated ball then descended to farce when tens of thousands of people attempted to attend, under the impression there would be free food and booze.
Another disorderly riot ensued, during which the royal-loving Melburnians fought over the snacks.
But worse was to come for the stunned royal as he headed out of Melbourne to tour the goldfields.
In Ballarat things went smoothly and Prince Alfred delighted in going as far underground as possible, donning the ordinary rags of a gold hunter and inspecting the machinery and processes of mining.
When he surfaced, covered in muck, he insisted on having his photo taken with other miners as a souvenir of his journey into the earth.
But his reception in Bendigo, then known as Sandhurst, turned to tragedy.
A model of his ship Galatea had been constructed as a parade float and was moving south west on the main Bendigo thoroughfare when fireworks stored inside caught alight.
The result was catastrophic.
The ship float, complete with mock masts, sails and rigging, was enveloped by a fast-moving blaze.
As the fire took hold, shocked onlookers realised several children who had been inside the float were trapped.
They were badly burned, and three later died of their injuries, all aged about 10.
As the township was plunged into mourning by the disaster, the royal tour had to continue.
After making inquires about the injured boys’ health at the local hospital, Prince Alfred was due to be received at Bendigo’s newly built Alfred Hall – named in his honour.
But the cursed royal visit simply couldn’t go to plan.
The brand new wooden hall was lit by gas-powered lamps.
Somehow, flame spread across the ballroom’s ceiling and a second raging fire took hold.
The hall was burned to the ground.
Mercifully, this time, nobody was killed.
Instead the royal reception took place in a nearby hall, decked out at the last minute.
But it wasn’t the final trial for the Prince during the doomed tour.
Assassination attempt
After finally seeing the back of Victoria, the colony named in honour of his mother, which seemed to bring him no end of pain and suffering, an even greater danger was waiting.
After some relaxing and uneventful visits to Tasmania, Sydney and Brisbane, the Prince arrived back in Sydney in January 1868.
He laid low for two months, shunning the spotlight, until a charity picnic in mid March.
There, while strolling among the public at Clontarf on Sydney’s north shore, a Catholic Irishman with a pistol emerged from the crowd and shot the Prince in the back.
The assassin was tackled to the ground before he could let off a second shot, and the Prince was taken to hospital with a bullet wound.
Fortunately he made a full recovery. In October 1868 he carried on his tour to New Zealand with a stiff upper lip.
But his memory of the disastrous first royal visit to Australia surely stung.
There had been an appeal to Alfred for clemency for Henry O’Farrell, his would be assassin – but the appeal was denied.
The shooter went to the gallows less than two months after the crime, and Prince Alfred went home with a sore back and a swag of unwanted stories to tell.
Originally published as Prince Alfred’s 1867 visit to Australia was a total disaster
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