Union Insurance of Canton, The Bund, Shanghai, festooned for the Duke of Connaught’s visit, 8 April 1890 © 2012 Billie Love Historical Collection, BL01-08.
The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, has arrived in Shanghai to open the ‘GREAT Festival of Creativity‘ being held at the Long Museum from 2-4 March. It was a century and a quarter ago, on 8 April 1890, that an English Prince first visited the city. That brief foray by the Duke of Connaught — Queen Victoria’s seventh child, and her third son — was recorded in a set of photographs we have placed on the ‘Historical Photographs of China’ site from the Billie Love Collection. The Bund was lavishly decorated for the arrival of the Prince –Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn — ceremonial arches were erected, bunting draped from lamp post to lamp post, and banners hung across the roadway. ‘Young Shanghai welcomes tee Scion of old England’ proclaimed this one with a nice copying error, evidently a Chinese sign-maker misreading the text he was presented with. We have an exhibition of the project’s photographs of 1920s-30s Shanghai on display in the festival.