This film is one of many made in Yorkshire to commemorate and record local Royal visits and engagements.  Always a highlight for any town or city, these occasions would often be filmed, usually through a commission from the local parish council.  Princess Mary's visits takes on special interest because, after her marriage in 1924, she came to live in Yorkshire, first at Goldborough, and later at Harewood House.  It was in the grounds of the Harewood House Estate that Princess Mary was to...

This film is one of many made in Yorkshire to commemorate and record local Royal visits and engagements.  Always a highlight for any town or city, these occasions would often be filmed, usually through a commission from the local parish council.  Princess Mary's visits takes on special interest because, after her marriage in 1924, she came to live in Yorkshire, first at Goldborough, and later at Harewood House.  It was in the grounds of the Harewood House Estate that Princess Mary was to suffer a fatal heart attack whilst out with her elder son, Lord Harewood, and his children in 1965; and it is here too that she is buried. 

The YFA has several other similar films of Princess Mary's visiting in Yorkshire: to the Newland Estate in 1949; to Castleford in 1929 to unveil the War memorial, open the Maternity home at Normanton and District Cottage Hospital, and open Castleford Public market; and, with her husband Viscount Lascelles, to Halifax in 1925. The films have an interest in comparing the manner of the visits with those of today.  It is interesting, for example, that there are no police around when the Princess when she arrives to a large crowd, unusual even in those times. It might also be noted how the Princess is fairly informally dressed and stops occasionally to chat with the people she is inspecting, perhaps here providing a model for future similar royal visits.

Princess Mary was the only daughter of George V and Queen Mary.  After King George V changed the Royal name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor (after the Castle of the same name) in 1917, Princess Mary was also known as Mary Windsor – not to be confused with the future Queen Mary.  From 1932 she also had the title of the Princess Royal.  Princess Mary's older brothers were Edward, the Duke of Windsor (becoming King Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936) and George VI, the present Queen's father.  In February 1922, at the age of 25, Mary married Viscount Henry Lascelles, later the Earl of Harewood, and settled to live in Harewood House, the Lascelles’ residence outside Leeds.   On marriage Viscount Lascelles became a Knight of the Garter and the 6th Earl of Harewood (and a Baron) in 1929.  A film of their wedding can be seen at the British Film Institutes Screenonline.

As a result of this marriage she inherited the acquired titles Viscountess of Lascelles and Countess of Harewood. The couple had two sons: George Lascelles, the seventh Earl of Harewood, who was born in 1923, and Gerald Lascelles, who was born 1924.  In November 1947 she declined to attend the wedding of her niece, the future Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to protest the fact that the Duke of Windsor had not been invited.  In 1951 she became the chancellor of Leeds University.

Princess Mary is perhaps best known for her instigation of the Princess Mary's Gift Box. This was a special Christmas gift fund launched during the First World War. The Princess intended to pay for a gift for each soldier and sailor from her own personal allowance; however this was not practicable and, instead, the Princess gave her name to the fund.

Her engagements often reflected Princess Mary’s concerns.  During World War One, Princess Mary visited hospitals and welfare organizations with her mother, assisting with projects to comfort British servicemen and give assistance to their families. She also took an active role in promoting the Girl Guides, becoming honorary President of the British Girl Guide Association in 1920, a position she held until her death.  The Girl Guides grew out of the Scouts in 1910, when Baden-Powell’s sister, Agnes, wrote How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire, and went on to become the President of the new organisation.

An interest in nursing led to her taking a nursing course in 1918, before doing work at Great Ormond Street Hospital.  It is no coincidence then that Princess Mary is opening the British Legion Club, or inspecting the Red Cross and the St John Ambulance Brigade.  All three organisations have interesting histories and are still going strong today.  

The British Legion was formed against a background of dissatisfaction and unrest among ex-Servicemen at the end of the First World War, with rioting of British troops in Calais and 3,000 marching on Whitehall.  In response to this the British Legion was formed July 1921, uniting the four national organisations of ex-Servicemen.  By 1925 it had 2,500 branches and 145,000 members.

The Red Cross originated somewhat earlier, in 1863, inspired by a Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant, who was horrified by the number of wounded on the battlefield of Solferino in 1859, part of the Italian War of Independence.  The Red Cross flag is an inversion of the Swiss national flag in homage to Dunant.  The following year, 1864, Dunant was also instrumental in establishing the Geneva Convention.  The British Red Cross Society wasn’t formed until 1905, coming out of the British National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War, which was set up in 1870.  The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was founded in 1919 in Paris, when it widened its aims to include, "the improvement of health, the prevention of disease, and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world". 

The St John Ambulance Brigade can trace its history back to Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in 1113.  In 1887 trained volunteers were organised into a uniformed Brigade to provide a first aid and ambulance service at public events. It carried out the first blood transfusions in 1921.
In many parts of Britain, St John was the first and only provider of an ambulance service right up to 1948 when the National Health Service was founded. Although set up more to help with injuries in peacetime, in times of war it works together with the Red Cross.

Although seemingly a long time ago, the film opens up issues that have great contemporary relevance, especially with the recent upsurge in interest in the history of slavery and its ramifications.  The family that Princess Mary married into, and her new Yorkshire home of Harewood House, are a part of this history.

The Lascelles originally arrived with the Norman Conquest in 1066, from the village of Lascelle in the French region of Orne.  Henry, although at the age of forty 18 years Princess Mary’s senior, was considered to be a suitable husband for Mary because of his wealth.  The Lascelles family fortune derived mainly from Henry Lascelles (1690-1753), who made his money from his position as a Barbadian customs collector and merchant, leaving net-assets of over £400,000  (approximately £52 million in today’s prices) on his death.  It was this money that enabled his son Edwin to have Harewood House built between 1759-71. Through defaults and property repossession between 1773 and 1787, Edwin then acquired some 22 working plantations on the islands of Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, and Tobago and 2,947 slaves, worth £293,000 (about £28.3 million in today’s prices).  This was then inherited by Edward Lascelles who was made Baron Harewood in 1796, and given an earldom in 1812.  After the abolition of slavery in 1833, the 2nd Earl of Harewood received £23,309 (approximately £1.9 million in today’s money) in compensation for the loss of his slaves.

Many of the slaves who worked for the Lascelles were named Harewood, after the project they were helping finance.  Some of their descendents now live in Leeds.  One descendent, the actor David Harewood – who starred in the film Blood Diamond, and a number of TV series including Silent Witness, The Ruby In The Smoke, Babyfather and Fat Friends – recently, in 2007, engaged the present Viscount Lascelles about this shameful history.  Afterwards he told the BBC, "We can look forward to a time when the name Harewood does not necessarily stand for something which is dark and murky."

 

References

 

Ronald Allison and Sarah Riddell, eds., The Royal Encyclopedia (London: Macmillan, 1991).

BBC Leeds, Simon Smith, Slavery and Harewood House

A good source of information on the Scouting Movement see Scouting Milestones

For a synopsis of titles, positions and honours of Viscount Lascelles see thepeerage  

The David Harewood story

 

Further Information

 

Simon Smith, Slavery, Family, and Gentry Capitalism in the British Atlantic: the World of the Lascelles, 1648-1834, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2006).

A useful summary and review of Smith, by Trevor Burnard, can be found at EH.NET