[Arthur William Patrick Albert]. Third son and seventh child of Queen Victoria; born at Buckingham Palace on the 1st of May 1850. Being destined for the army, the young prince was entered at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1866, and gazetted to the Royal Engineers on the 19th of June 1868. In the following November he was transferred to the Royal Artillery, and on the 3rd of August 1869 to the Rifle Brigade. He became captain in 1871, and, transferred to the 7th Hussars in 1874, was promoted major in 1875, and returned to the Rifle Brigade as lieutenant-colonel in September 1876. He was promoted colonel and major-general in 1880, lieutenant-general in 1889, and general in 1893. He accompanied the expeditionary force to Egypt in 1882, and commanded the Guards brigade at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. He was mentioned three times in despatches, received the C.B. and was thanked by parliament. In 1886 the duke went to India and commanded the Bombay army until 1890, when he returned home. He commanded the southern district from 1890 to 1893, and that of Aldershot from 1893 to 1898. On the departure of Lord Roberts for South Africa the duke succeeded him as commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland, 9th of January 1900. On attaining his majority in 1871 an annuity of £15,000 was granted to Prince Arthur by parliament, and in 1874 he was created duke of Connaught and Strathearn and earl of Sussex. On the 13th of March 1879 he married Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia, third daughter of Prince Frederick Charles, and received an additional annuity of £10,000. The duke and duchess represented Queen Victoria at the coronation of the tsar Nicholas II. at Moscow in 1896. On the reorganization of the war office and the higher commands in 1904, the duke was appointed to the new office of inspector-general to the forces, from which he retired in 1907, being then given the new post of commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, stationed at Malta, which he held until 1909. In 1910 he went to South Africa to open the Union Parliament on behalf of King George V. He was appointed in 1911 to succeed Earl Grey as governor-general of Canada, retiring from this office in 1916. In December 1920 he went to India as the representative of King George in order to inaugurate the provincial legislative councils of Madras, Bengal, and Bombay, arriving at Madras January 10, 1921. In various speeches he sounded a note of conciliation with Indian progressive feelings, and it was agreed on his return to England that valuable help had been given by his utterances to the work of self-government in India under the new régime.
The Duchess of Connaught died in London on the 14th of March 1917. The Duke’s only son, Prince Arthur of Connaught (1883–1938), married in 1913 Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife, daughter of the Princess Royal, who had succeeded in 1912 to her father’s dukedom by special remainder. Prince Arthur was in 1920 appointed governor-general of the Union of South Africa. The Duke of Connaught’s elder daughter, Princess Margaret (b. 1882), was married in 1905 to the Crown Prince of Sweden, and died at Stockholm on the 1st of May 1920. The younger daughter, Princess Patricia (1886–1974), married in 1919 the Hon. Alexander Robert Maule Ramsay, third son of the 13th Earl of Dalhousie. Princess Patricia of Connaught resigned her royal title on her marriage, and elected to be known as Lady Patricia Ramsay.
