Queen Alexandra - Legacy

Legacy

After Alexandra married the Prince of Wales in 1863, a new park and "Palace of the People", a huge public exhibition and arts centre under construction on a hilltop overlooking north London, were renamed the Alexandra Palace and park to commemorate her.

The Queen Alexandra Memorial by Alfred Gilbert was unveiled on Alexandra Rose Day 8 June 1932 at Marlborough Gate, London. An ode in her memory, "So many true princesses who have gone", composed by the then Master of the King's Musick Sir Edward Elgar to words by the Poet Laureate John Masefield, was sung at the unveiling and conducted by the composer.

Alexandra was highly popular with the British public. Unlike her husband and mother-in-law, she was not castigated by the press. Funds that she helped to collect were used to buy a river launch, called Alexandra, to ferry the wounded during the Sudan campaign, and to fit out a hospital ship, named The Princess of Wales, to bring back wounded from the Boer War. During the Boer War, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, later renamed Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, was founded under Royal Warrant.

She had little understanding of money. The management of her finances was left in the hands of her loyal comptroller, Sir Dighton Probyn VC, who undertook a similar role for her husband. In the words of her grandson, Edward VIII (later the Duke of Windsor), "Her generosity was a source of embarrassment to her financial advisers. Whenever she received a letter soliciting money, a cheque would be sent by the next post, regardless of the authenticity of the mendicant and without having the case investigated." Though she was not always extravagant (she had her old stockings darned for re-use and her old dresses were recycled as furniture covers), she would dismiss protests about her heavy spending with a wave of a hand or by claiming that she had not heard.

She hid a small scar on her neck, which was likely the result of a childhood operation, by wearing choker necklaces and high necklines, setting fashions which were adopted for fifty years. Alexandra's effect on fashion was so profound that society ladies even copied her limping gait, after her serious illness in 1867 left her with a stiff leg. She used predominantly the London fashion houses; her favourite was Redfern's, but she shopped occasionally at Doucet and Fromont of Paris.

Queen Alexandra has been portrayed on British television by Deborah Grant and Helen Ryan in Edward the Seventh, Ann Firbank in Lillie, Maggie Smith in All the King's Men, and Bibi Andersson in The Lost Prince. Helen Ryan also portrayed her in the 1980 film The Elephant Man, and Julia Blake played her in the 1999 film Passion. In a 1980 stage play by Royce Ryton, Motherdear, she was portrayed by Margaret Lockwood in her last acting role.