Today, Prince Charles paid a visit to the Art Workers’ Guild, before heading to the National Gallery to view some exhibitions. Charles then attended the Industrial Cadet Awards, where he presented honours to young people who have been involved in accredited programmes, including apprenticeships.
The Prince of Wales’ first stop of the day was the Art Workers’ Guild, an organisation which joins together more than 350 artists, craftspeople and architects. The Guild was founded back in 1884 and was used as a meeting place for the fine and applied arts. Today, the Guild includes members from over 60 creative disciplines, with activities as varied film-making and glass-engraving to wallpaper design and architecture.
Many influential figures have been members of the Guild, including the Victorian textile designer, William Morris, who is well-known for his flowery prints which were very popular on wallpaper and book covers.
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During today’s visit – which comes the day after The Prince’s Trust awards – the heir to the throne was given the opportunity to try his hand at letter cutting, a traditional practice of engraving letters in stone; Charles engraved the ‘S’ of the phrase ‘Hasten Slowly’, although he seemed to be having difficulty with the task! After gamely taking up his tools, the Prince was seen gritting his teeth and giggling as he tried to etch the letter on the stone plaque.
Charles is in an Honorary Brother of the Art Workers’ Guild, with a personal interest in art, painting watercolours himself.
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Membership represents over 60 creative disciplines, from glass engraving and wallpaper design to architecture, film-making and stone engraving! pic.twitter.com/qEiXocadmj
— Clarence House (@ClarenceHouse) March 7, 2018
Charles then visited the Guild’s historic Courtyard, which has recently been restored. The restoration project was partly funded by the Prince of Wales’ Charitable Foundation.
He also had time to chat with Guild Brother Anthony Paine, who designed beehives for the gardens at Highgrove, Charles and Camilla’s private residence.
The Prince of Wales also unveiled a plaque to commemorate the restoration of the Courtyard.
Prince Charles then paid a visit to the National Gallery; The Queen’s eldest son is currently patron of the Gallery, and was a Trustee before he took on the role of Patron in 2016.
While at the Gallery, Charles was accompanied by Chris Riopelle, who is the Curator of post-1800 paintings, as he toured the exhibition ‘Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell’.
The Prince also met with the Gallery’s Director and exhibition curator Minna Moore Ede, who joined Charles as he viewed the ‘Manod: The Nation’s Treasure Caves’ exhibition, which looks at a chapter of the National Gallery’s history from the Second World War. Although Charles is Patron of the National Gallery, his daughter-in-law The Duchess of Cambridge also has a keen interest in art; last week, Catherine visited the National Portrait Gallery.
The Prince’s final engagement of the day was at the Industrial Cadet Awards. The Industrial Cadet programme was established after Charles visited Tata Steel in 2010, where he stressed that young people were not choosing to work in local industry due to a lack of resources. The Industrial Cadet programme was then created to address this need; the scheme offers accredited programmes which aim to encourage to follow careers in science, technology and engineering, as well as apprenticeships.
prince charles attends the Industrial Cadet Awards (Clarence House)
Prince Charles was the one who named the scheme, and so it was appropriate that he was in attendance to present some of the awards. By July 2018, 14,000 young people will have ‘graduated’ from the accredited programmes offered by Industrial Cadets; these accreditations are a nationally recognised standard for work placements in industry.
Among the award recipients was Abike Looi-Somoye, who completed a placement with Rolls Royce. Today, Abike became the first ever Cadet to win a Platinum Level Award, receiving her honour from The Prince of Wales.
The Prince presents a Platinum level award to Cadet Abike Looi-Somoye (Clarence House)
The Royal made a speech at the ceremony, offering his “warmest congratulations to all those who have taken part”.
After the awards ceremony, Charles met with young people who have benefitted from the scheme and heard about their experiences.
? “I express my warmest congratulations to all those who have taken part, supported and been involved with @IndustrialCadet’s” – HRH
Find out how you can get involved here: https://t.co/NoA54eFJLfpic.twitter.com/fnoETHpTQz
— Clarence House (@ClarenceHouse) 7 March 2018
This evening, the Prince is hosting the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia for dinner at Clarence House; the dinner will be attended by Prince William.
1 comment
broaching regional defence industry regulation in tandem with resource management is very difficult, especially so, GIVEN THE long HISTORY OF SAUDI TRADE OF OIL FOR WEAPONS. VIA THE U.S., I did raise the issue once with the Saudi Ambassador in Canberra when studying multilateralism, and the prospect of a multilateral forum in the middle east for that purpose.in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, no such political framework has eventuated in the middle east, and the wars in yemen, syria and indeed the pal/israel divide remain linked to both the trade of military hardware within the region, as well as theocratic and sectarian differences. Addressing state resources transcends sectarian and theocratic divides – as well as state borders, and is increasingly a regional issue when it comes to trade regulation in respect of sustainable development – water management and climate change. Iran (as far as I can tell) understands this, as surely the saudis do. in short, regulating the industry of defense on a regional basis is less realistic without first creating political bonds of accord via geopolitical (regional) resource management. Neither the arab league nor the gulf co-operation council can achieve this without israel. and iran. It helps, by the way, to speak and write arabic. al hamdu lilllah.