Page 60 - They Also Served

proved to be a sympathetic and tactful governor, winning the respect of all sides and resolving the potentially emotive issue of a change of flag.
Returning to the UK in 1931, the earl became constable and governor of Windsor Castle and, the following year, chancellor of the University of London. In 1939, he was appointed chairman of the Football Association, a role now held by William, Prince of Wales. In the late 1930s, there had been calls for the next governor-general of Canada to be a Canadian but, with the death of the incumbent, Lord Tweedsmuir in February 1940, the prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, asked King George VI to appoint his uncle, as the Earl of Athlone was seen as a safe pair of hands in a crisis.
The earl proved to be a popular and dynamic governor and travelled widely, visiting troops in training and in hospital. He not only hosted the Quebec Conferences in which the defeat of Germany and Japan was mapped out by Churchill and Roosevelt but opened his official residence to the dozens of European royals in self-imposed exile. Returning to the UK in March 1946, he was one of the organisers of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Alexander, Earl of Athlone, died at Kensington Palace on 16th January 1957.
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