Queen Alexandra - Stepney Way, London, UK
N 51° 31.046 W 000° 03.555
30U E 704027 N 5711468
This slightly larger than life-size, bronze statue of Queen Alexandra is located on the south side of Stepney Way that runs through the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Queen Alexandra was the wife of Edward VII.
Waymark Code: WMMC8C
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/30/2014
Views: 1
The Royal Family History website, under the entry for Edward VII, tells us:
He was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and known to his family as ‘Bertie’. As Prince of Wales he did not meet his parent’s expectations of duty and during his mother’s long reign devoted himself to being self-indulgent. He was likeable, sociable and outgoing but became known as a playboy interested in horse racing, shooting, eating, drinking and other men’s wives.
In 1863 he married Alexandra of Denmark and the marriage was a reasonably happy producing 6 children. Alexandra tolerated his succession of mistresses who included Lille Langtry (actress), Lady Churchill (mother of Winston Churchill), Sarah Bernhardt (actress) and Alice Keppel (great-grandmother of Camilla wife of Charles the current Prince of Wales). Having mistresses was at the time not uncommon amongst the aristocracy, but his mother despaired of him and kept him away from taking an active part in politics even after Albert's death and she was elderly and retired to Balmoral and Osborne. In 1871 Edward survived a serious illness of typhoid which had killed his father. His eldest son Albert who was engaged to Mary of Teck died of pneumonia.
Edward was well received abroad and as heir-apparent toured India in 1875. When he finally became King Edward VII on the death of his mother in 1901, he frequently made trips to Europe including France where he contributed to the Anglo-French ‘Entente Cordiale’ signed in 1904, to Russia and the Triple Entente between Britain, Russia and France which a few years later would play an important role in affairs on the outbreak of World War I. He supported reform of the army following the Boer War, and Admiral Fisher’s expansion of the Royal Navy including building the new Dreadnought battleships.
The Edwardian period was seen as golden age for the upper class in Europe and America, but society was changing – socialism, women suffragettes, the Labour party and trade unions were becoming powerful and the founding of Britain’s Welfare State. ‘We are all socialists now’ he is reported to have remarked. In an increasing democratic society Edward saw the importance of displaying the mystique of pomp and circumstance of the monarchy, and seeing and being seen by the people. A role he and his successors took to well. He died of pneumonia at Buckingham Palace in 1910 and was succeeded by his second son George V.
The statue, at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, shows Queen Alexandra, the wife of Edward VII, wearing full coronation robes and crown holding a sceptre in her right hand. The plaque on the front of the plinth tells us:
Her Majesty
Queen Alexandra
President of the London Hospital
1904
Who always took a personal & sympathetic interest in its work
and who in 1900 introduced to England
the Finsen Light cure for Lupus
and presented the first lamp to this hospital
This statue was erected by friends of the hospital
1908
The PMSA website tells us about the statue and Queen Alexandra:
Statue of Queen Alexandra wearing full coronation robes and crown holding a sceptre in her right hand. On south face of plinth is a pictorial plaque in low relief showing the royal visit to a ward where the Finsen lamp was in use for the relief of Lupus.
Unveiled by Lord Crewe, Chairman of the Hospital. The statue cost £1,500 of which Wade waived half. 'Queen Alexandra is one of the shining lights of the English Royal Family. From her arrival in England onwards she was a popular figure, beautiful, natural and charming, with a genuine concern for the sick and poor. To some of these she must have seemed a fairytale character, the princess from Copenhagen to whom Hans Christian Andersen had told his bedside stories. And though her statue at the London Hospital was put up when she was over 60, there was little flattery in the portrait; she kept the same slender beauty all her life. The London Hospital, deep in the East End, was her special love and she spent hours visiting the wards. Rheumatic fever had left her permanently lame ("the Alexandra limp" became fashionable and was imitated by society ladies) . . . The plaque shows the operation of the Finsen ultra-violet light cure for lupus (tuberculosis of the skin) which Alexandra introduced into Britain. She bullied the London Hospital into sending a representative to her native Copenhagen to study the cure and they engraved "Nothing but Perseverance" on their first lamp. It proved remarkably successful; they treated 100 patients a day for 25 years and the incidence of the disease was reduced for the first time'. On the day of the unveiling the weather was unfavourable but the hospital authorities had arranged for the ceremony to take place in a huge marquee, the sides of which were sufficiently drawn to enable those patients well enough to view some of the proceedings from their ward balconies. The statue was moved in spring 1959 to allow a new ward block to be built. It was returned after it had been cleaned and restored to its original condition. It was placed in the same courtyard but facing the opposite direction on a lower plinth to enable the very fine detail of the sculpture to be seen. Scaffolding had to be erected around the statue, which stood nearly 20 feet from the ground and weighed three quarters of a ton, to allow it to be removed.
Statue of Queen Alexandra in recognition of her Presidency of the London Hospital in 1904. The pictorial plaque commemorates the Queen's work in introducing the Finsen lamp to combat Lupus.