Page 92 - The Wish Stream Year of 2020 Crest

Every Friday, The Sandhurst Trust Facebook page features a former OCdt who has gone on to make a mark in life outside the Army.
Here are six of them:
PRINCE CHRISTIAN VICTOR OF SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN
King’s Royal Rifle Corps 1888
Prince Christian Victor Albert Louis Ernst Anton of Schleswig-Holstein was born at Windsor Cas- tle in April 1867, the son of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess Helena, third daughter of Queen Victoria. The family lived at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. Edu- cated first at Lambrook prep school then Wel- lington College, he became the first member of the Royal family to go to school, rather than be home-educated by a private tutor. The choice of school was shrewd as Prince Albert had been closely involved in the inception of Wellington and Queen Victoria opened the school in 1859. Indeed, it was said that the Prince, known as ‘Christle’ to his family, was Queen Victoria’s favourite grandchild.
Famous Friday
Vaughan Kent-Payne
At Wellington, Prince Christian Victor excelled at sports, captaining the cricket team in 1885 as well as, subsequently, Magdalen College, Oxford and Sandhurst. Whilst at The Royal Mili- tary College he played a single match in 1887 for I Zingari, a prominent amateur club, against the Gentlemen of England scoring 35 and 0. He remains the only member of the Royal family to have played first-class cricket.
Commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in 1888, he saw extensive action in the Hazara and Samana Campaigns of 1891, in what is now Pakistan. Whilst playing for his regiment against the Devonshire Regiment at Rawalpindi in 1893, he had scored 205 when he gave his wicket away, believing he had scored the highest score in India up to that time – only to be later informed that he was 13 runs short. In 1895 he took part in the Ashanti Expedition in modern Ghana and was promoted to Major and on the staff of Lord Kitchener, in the 1898 Campaign in The Sudan, for which he was awarded the DSO.
During the Second Boer War, Prince Christian was on the staff of General Sir Redvers Buller including the relief of Ladysmith, and later in Pre- toria under Lord Roberts. In 1900, whilst serving in Pretoria, he contracted malaria and died on 29 October. He was given Holy Communion on his death bed in the presence of Lord Roberts and fellow Sandhurst alumnus, Prince Francis of Teck. As the burial was being conducted in Pretoria cemetery, a Boer woman commented: “They are burying their Prince in British soil – The English intend to remain in this land.” A statue of the Prince was also erected outside Windsor Castle in 1903 in a ceremony attended by Lord Roberts.
FREDERICK ‘DAN’ MINCHIN Connaught Rangers 1910
Frederick Frank Reilly Minchin was born in Madras, India, in June 1890. Educated at East- bourne College he graduated from Sandhurst in October 1910 into the Connaught Rangers, serving in Ireland. In late 1912, during a spell of leave, he returned to Eastbourne to learn to fly and obtained Royal Aero Club Certificate num-
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