Up for auction a VERY RARE! "1st Earl of Athlone" Alexander Cambridge Signed 2.25X3.75 Card. Included in the offering is the transmittal letter from Lord Athelone's private secretary explaining that he does not comply with requests for autographs but as the person requesting the autograph is ill he will break his own rule. This one of the only known examples of his signature not in a museum.
ES-4035
Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone (Alexander
Augustus Frederick William Alfred George; born Prince Alexander of Teck;
14 April 1874 – 16 January 1957), was a British Army commander and major-general who
served as the fourth Governor-General
of the Union of South Africa and as Governor General of Canada,
the 16th since
the Canadian Confederation. Prince
Alexander was born in London to the Duke and Duchess of
Teck and was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College,
Sandhurst. In 1904, he married Princess Alice of Albany and
rose in the military ranks through his service on the western front of
the First World War, receiving
numerous honours and decorations. A cousin and also brother-in-law of King George V, he relinquished his German titles in 1917, including that of Prince of Teck in
the Kingdom of Württemberg,
and was elevated to the peerage as the Earl of Athlone. He was in 1923 appointed as South Africa's
governor-general by the King, on the recommendation of Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom Stanley Baldwin, to replace Prince Arthur of Connaught,
and he occupied the viceregal post until succeeded by the Earl of
Clarendon in 1930. Athlone then served as Chancellor of
the University of London until,
in 1940, he was appointed as Canada's governor general by King George VI,[1][2][3][4] on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie
King, to replace Lord Tweedsmuir (John Buchan), and he occupied the post until
succeeded by Viscount
Alexander of Tunis in 1946. Athlone helped galvanise the Canadian war
effort and was a host to British and American statesmen during
the Second World War. After
returning to the United Kingdom, Athlone sat on the organising committee for
the coronation of Queen
Elizabeth II. He died at Kensington Palace in 1957 and was interred in the Royal Burial Ground,
Frogmore. Prince Alexander of Teck was born at Kensington Palace on 14 April 1874, the fourth child
and third son of Prince Francis, Duke of Teck,
and Princess
Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck. Although his mother was a
granddaughter of King George III and
first cousin to Queen Victoria, Athlone,
as the son of a prince of Teck in Württemberg, was styled
from birth as His Serene Highness and held the title Prince
Alexander of Teck. He was known, however, to his family and friends
as Alge, derived from the first two letters of Alexander and George, and
was characterised as a meticulous individual with a quick, but short-lived,
temper and an ability to be cautious and tactful.
When
Prince Alexander was nine years old, his parents fled the United Kingdom
for continental Europe to
escape their high debts. They stayed there for two years. The Prince remained
at Eton College before
moving on to the Royal Military College,
Sandhurst.[6] In October 1894, having completed
his officer's training, Prince Alexander was commissioned as a second lieutenant in
the 7th Queen's Own Hussars, and
shortly after served in the Second Matabele War. He
was mentioned in despatches during
the conflict and, after its cessation, was appointed on 8 December 1898 by
Queen Victoria as a Knight Commander of the Royal
Victorian Order. He received a promotion to lieutenant in
June 1899 and to captain the
following April. For his actions in the Second Boer War, Alexander was in April 1901 appointed by
King Edward VII as a Companion of the Distinguished Service
Order. The announcement came
on 16 November 1903 that Prince Alexander had become engaged to his second cousin once removed, Princess
Alice of Albany, daughter of Prince Leopold, Duke of
Albany, and thus a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and niece of the
then soon-to-be Governor General of Canada, Prince
Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. The two were wed at St. George's
Chapel, in Windsor Castle, on 10 February 1904 and, six days later,
in celebration of the wedding, the Prince was promoted to the grade of a Knight
Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. The couple thereafter had three
children: Princess May of Teck, born
1906; Prince
Rupert of Teck, born 1907; and Prince Maurice Francis George of
Teck. Maurice, however, lived only for less than six months, between 29
March and 14 September 1910. In the same year Prince Alexander was appointed
Chairman of Middlesex Hospital.
Prior
to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914,
Prince Alexander, who had been promoted to major in January 1911 and was a
brevet lieutenant-colonel commanding the 2nd Life Guards, was
nominated by the British
Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to serve as Governor General of Canada.
However, the Prince was called up for active service with his regiment,[18] taking him to battle in France and Flanders. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel,
with the temporary rank of brigadier-general, in December 1915. at the same
time he was serving as the head of the British Mission to the Belgian Army.[ For his service on the
battlefields, in June 1917 Prince Alexander was appointed by his brother in
law, King George V, as a Companion of the Order of
St. Michael and St. George. During the war,
anti-German sentiment throughout the British Empire led the King to change the name of the
royal house from the Germanic House of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha to the more English House of Windsor, while simultaneously renouncing all Germanic
titles for himself and all members of the Royal Family. Through a royal warrant
issued on 14 July 1917, Alexander, along with his brother, Prince
Adolphus, Duke of Teck, similarly relinquished all of his German
titles, styles, and honours, choosing instead the name of Cambridge,
after his grandfather, Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. Alexander was then known simply as
Sir Alexander Cambridge (being entitled to the honorific Sir through
his knighthoods in the Royal Victorian Order and
the Order of the Bath), until,
on 7 November 1917, the King created him Earl of Athlone and Viscount Trematon.Athlone had declined a marquessate, as he thought the title did not sound British
enough. Athlone's wife retained her royal style and title, while their
surviving children became the Lady May Cambridge and Rupert Cambridge, Viscount
Trematon. Rupert was to inherit the title of Earl of Athlone, but he died on 15
April 1928, ten days shy of his twenty-first birthday, meaning the third
creation of the title became extinct with the death of the first earl.