The Royal Visit and Opening of

the Territorial Force Drill Hall

RAY COLLIER

‘A Day of Stirring Incidents and Inspiring Enthusiasm’[1]

The 25^th April 2024 marked the 110^th anniversary of the ceremonial opening of Neath’s Territorial Force Drill Hall by their ‘Royal and Serene Highnesses’ Prince Alexander of Teck, the brother-in-law of King George V and his wife Princess Alice, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.[2] Aside from the civic celebration, the essential purpose of the visit was to boost recruitment to the Territorial Forces in the face of the perceived military threat from Germany.

Prince and Princess Alexander of Teck

The Cheltenham Looker-On - 2^nd May 1914 

On a three-acre site at the junction of Eastland Road and Cimla Road, the new Territorial Headquarters were built to house the 1^st Glamorgan Royal Field Artillery, F Company of the 6^th Battalion, Welsh Regiment, E Company 7^th (Cyclist) Battalion, Welsh Regiment and the Neath Squadron of the Glamorgan Yeomanry. Designed by Mansel H Hunter, a Neath architect and a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorials, the construction costs were over £6,000 but the outcome was not met with critical acclaim.[3] Consisting of three separate blocks and a caretaker’s house, The Cambria Daily Leader newspaper described the buildings as ‘a plain, but substantial and serviceable structure’ but ‘architectural beauty has not been studied.’[4]

Neath’s New Territorial Headquarters

Cambria Daily Leader - 25^th April 1914

The principal focus of the newspapers, however, was the Royal visit. The Cambria Daily Leader reminded its readers that while Edward VII had ‘passed [Neath] when he visited Swansea’, the opening of the drill hall would be ‘an event invested with novelty, for on no previous occasion has the ancient borough been favoured with a like visit.’[5] In the week before the visit, both of Swansea’s newspapers carried the proposed programme for the day, the highpoint of which would be Princess Alice’s formal opening of the Territorial’s Headquarters with a ‘golden key.’[6]  With local businesses set to close ‘from three to five o’clock’, the streets were predicted to be a ‘blaze of colour.’[7] A ‘large influx of visitors’ was expected from ‘neighbouring valleys and towns’ and the newspapers forecast that it would be ‘one of the most brilliant military and civic events’ in Neath’s history.[8]

              Having travelled by road from Miskin Manor the Royal party arrived in Neath on the afternoon of the 25^th April 1914. There was, reported the South Wales Weekly Post, ‘one prolonged note of gladness from the moment of the arrival of our illustrious guests to the moment of their departure.’[9] With the reported cheering of the ‘thousands that lined the streets’, there was ‘barely a street which did not bear some humble tribute of loyalty.’[10] Travelling in an open motor car the Prince and Princess were escorted by mounted police along Briton Ferry Road, Windsor Road, Green Street and Orchard Street before arriving at the Gwyn Hall. To the ‘strains of martial music’ and a guard of honour from the 6^th Battalion Welsh Regiment, the Royal guests were met by the Mayor, William Burrows Trick JP and the Mayoress.

Saluting the Colours outside the Gwyn Hall

(the Prince and Princess are on the left)

Herald of Wales - 2nd May 1914. 

Little expense appears to have been spared neither on the decoration of the Gwyn Hall, nor on the menu for the 120 guests invited to lunch. The floor of the Council chamber had been ‘richly carpeted’ to form a ‘luxuriously furnished banqueting hall’ and the guests were entertained by a string orchestra during lunch.[11] Similarly, the corridors had been carpeted and ‘draped with tapestries’ and the anterooms for the Prince and Princess ‘tastefully furnished’ with ‘tapestries, mirrors and oil paintings’ supplied by Ben Evans and Co. of Swansea.[12]

Menu for the Civic Lunch - South Wales Weekly Post, 2^nd May 1914 

After a lengthy lunch, followed by speeches and the loyal toast, the civic part of the day was concluded and the Mayor’s guests departed the Gwyn Hall to the singing of the Neath Choral Society.  Preceded by the Skewen Silver Band, and with an escort of the Glamorgan Yeomanry, the Royal party were driven, via St David’s Street and Victoria Gardens, to the Territorial Force Headquarters. With the new buildings and the parade ground bedecked in streamers, bunting and flags, the Prince, dressed in the dress uniform of the Life Guards, inspected the guard of honour before the Princess performed the official opening ceremony of unlocking the door of the new drill hall.  Patronised by the press as possessing the ‘very pretty gift of making ... tactful and well phrased speeches’, on this occasion the Princess restricted herself to declaring the hall open for the ‘Territorial Force in the ancient borough of Neath.’[13] After taking tea with the officers of the Territorials, the visit ended with an inspection of the Neath Battalion of the Glamorgan National Reserve at the Great Western railway station.[14]

The Prince and Princess arriving at Neath 

NAS Collection - (NAS/PH/52/2/098)

Before the Royal party returned to Miskin Manor, the South West Weekly Post quaintly described the ‘cordial au revoirs’, from the Mayor and his Deputy to the Prince and Princess, as comparable to ‘old friends bidding each other adieu.’[15] Not everyone, however, was enamoured by the expense of the Royal visit and the Neath’s Trades Council passed a resolution of no confidence in the Council at the expenditure of public money and ‘the fostering of the military spirit.’ [16] Nevertheless, both of Swansea’s principal newspapers praised the people of Neath, the Mayor and the civic officials on the success of the Royal visit but the Chief Constable’s report is etched with a sense of relief that there was ‘not a single accident, or any case of theft being reported.’[17] With 92 additional police officers from the Glamorgan County force, two detectives from Cardiff and a detective from the ‘Special Service Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department’ at New Scotland Yard, the Chief Constable, William Higgins, reported that the ‘public generally behaved excellently and greatly assisted the police ... showing their loyalty in a proper manner.’[18]

Amid the pageantry and the celebration of the Royal visit, the real function of the day was to ‘give impetus’ to increasing the size of the Territorial Force and combat the threat of German militarism and a possible invasion.[19] While World War One was not foreseen in April 1914, international tension between Britain and Germany had been growing since the turn of the century, particularly over the expansion of the German North Sea fleet.  The suspicion of Germany was consequently a ‘smouldering fire’ which was kept alight by the growing conviction in the press and popular literature of a German threat to Britain and her Empire.[20] Under pressure from the National Service League and its celebrity supporters, for compulsory military service for 18–30-year-old males, in 1908 the Government combined the Volunteers and Yeomanry into the Territorial Force, but maintained the principle of voluntary military service.[21] In the opinion of the South Wales Weekly Post, the main obstacle for the Territorial Force was ‘public apathy’ and the newspaper recommend that the events in Neath, by ‘bringing the Territorials conspicuously before the public eye should recur more frequently.’[22]

Although the Territorial Force was intended for home defence, during World War One many of its members volunteered for overseas service, including members of the 6^th Battalion, Welsh Regiment, the first Welsh Territorial Force to be sent to France in 1914.[23] Among those volunteering was its commanding officer, Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart M.P., who was present at the opening of the Territorial Force drill hall in Neath in April 1914.[24] Prince Alexander of Teck also served with British forces on the Western Front and in 1917, when George V renounced the Royal family’s German titles, he adopted the name of Cambridge and was later appointed Earl of Athlone.[25] In 1923 the society diarist Chips Channon described the Earl as ‘affable, polite, meticulous and rather the German cavalry officer in his sense of detail for uniforms, orders, etc.’ while Princess Alice was ‘much the easiest of the royalties and rather prides herself on it’, she was ‘delightful, human and pretty, in an unostentatious way and even chic.’[26]