The Rules and Regulation of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert were last updated in 1887. Indeed this update is dated December 31, 1887. [These are reproduced on pages 44-46 of Risk et al’s Royal Service Volume II] One of the changes related to the regulations for wearing the insignia. Queen Victoria had expressed interest in allowing the first class badges to be worn from a broad riband sash for important event. Correspondingly the Ninth regulation, relating to “the Decoration of the First Class of the Order” includes a section…
“that the badge should be worn on all occasions of State or high Ceremony by Members of this class, suspended to a white moire Riband of two inches and a quarter in width passing from the right shoulder obliquely to the left side: or, on ordinary occasions, attached to a like Riband of an inch and a half in width, tied in a bow, on the left shoulder, as heretofore authorised and sanctioned.”
Note, there was no star of the order, just the bejewelled badge on the sash.
The wearing of the First Class on the white sash was a rare occurrence. Risk et al note HRH The Duchess of Connaught wearing “her V.A. from a sash at the coronation of King Edward VII [ actually it was King George V, as we will see in another post], at the opening of the first Parliament of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and on other occasions in accordance with the Ninth of the Rules and Regulations of the Order.” They continue, “at the state opening of Parliament in the United Kingdom on 14 February 1901, HRH Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, is recorded as wearing the Order from a sash.”
After the introduction of the sash in 1887, the first time we seem to come across its use in by HRH The Princess of Wales, at the marriage of her son HRH The Duke of York, in 1893. On most state occasions she had worn her Russian Order of St Catherine as her sash, with the V.A., C.I., and her father’s family order as shoulder badges. However, she obviously saw her son’s wedding as a suitably important occasion.
HRH The Princess of Wales with her daughters
HRH The Princess of Wales with her Mother and eldest daughter, 1893 Note the V.A. badge under her left elbow.
The Princess of Wales had worn no sash, and the V.A. order on the shoulder bow for the wedding of her daughter HRH Princess Louise of Wales to the newly created Duke of Fife in July 1889.
https://www.rct.uk/sites/default/files/collection-online/c/b/806109-1533894001.jpg
https://www.rct.uk/sites/default/files/collection-online/e/3/296605-1340896989.jpg
HRH The Princess of Wales with her sons, 1889
When her daughter HRH Princess Maud of Wales married two years after her brother in 1895, The Princess of Wales was once again was wearing the Order of St Catherine for her sash.
https://www.rct.uk/collection/2940422/group-photograph-taken-at-wedding-of-princess-maud-of-wales
From 1901, when Queen Alexandra became the first modern “lady of the Garter” she wore that order for her sash, with the V.A. on a shoulder bow. It was soon to be joined by her own husband’s family order. More on that later.
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