The Royal Tour 1901 or The Cruise of HMS Ophir - Being a Lower Deck Account of their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York's VIsit Around the British Empire

The Royal Tour is a facsimile of Petty Officer Harry Price's handwritten and illustrated account of the cruise of the HMS Ophir in 1901, when the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George V and Queen Mary) toured almost the whole of the British Empire with the exception of India. They travelled via Gibraltar and Malta down the Red Sea to Colombo and Singapore, going on to Australia and New Zealand, across the Indian Ocean to South Africa via Mauritius and finally to Canada via St Vincent before returning to England. The whole trip took nearly nine months and was enormously popular with the countries visited. It was a time when the British Empire was immensely strong, and the reception of the royal party at each port of call highlighted the success of the tour as a diplomatic exercise. Harry Price wrote and illustrated his journal during the voyage itself, and produced a picture of the tour which has an immediate and spontaneous impact, far removed from the turgid official reports of the time. Apart from the journal itself the book includes a biographical note by Harry Price's son Jack, his naval papers and a portrait of himself in the tropical kit of the period...