Prince Alemayehu

Biography

Alemayehu's father, Emperor Tewodros II died by suicide after his defeat by the British led by Sir Robert Napier, at the conclusion of the British Expedition to Abyssinia in 1868. After the Battle of Magdala, the young prince was taken to Britain, under the care of Captain Tristram Speedy, after the British attack on his home, and ransacking of the royal treasures by soldiers and others, including a staff member of the British museum. Ethiopian novelist Maaza Mengiste writes in The Guardian that Alemayehu was kidnapped.

While staying at Speedy's home on the Isle of Wight he was introduced to Queen Victoria at her home at Osborne House. She took a great interest in his life and education. Alamayehu spent some time in India with Speedy and his wife, but the government decided he should be educated in England and he was sent to Lockers Park School and then to Cheltenham to be educated under the care of Thomas Jex-Blake, principal of Cheltenham College. He moved to Rugby School with Jex-Blake in 1875, where one of his tutors was Cyril Ransome (the future father of Arthur Ransome). In 1878 he joined the officers' training school at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but he was not happy there and the following year went to Far Headingley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, to stay with his old tutor Cyril Ransome. Within a week he had contracted pleurisy and died after six weeks of illness, despite the attentions of Dr Clifford Allbutt of Leeds and other respected consultants.

Victoria mentioned the death of the young prince in her diary, saying what a good and kind boy he had been and how sad it was that he should die so far from his family. She also mentioned how very unhappy the prince had been, and how conscious he was of people staring at him because of his colour.

Victoria arranged for Alamayehu to be buried in the catacombs of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The funeral took place on 21 November 1879, in the presence of Cyril Ransome, Chancellor of the Exchequer Stafford Northcote, General Napier, and Captain Speedy. A brass plaque in the nave of St George's commemorates him and bears the words "I was a stranger and ye took me in", and Alamayehu's body was buried in a brick vault in the catacombs west of the chapel.

In 2007, the Ethiopian government requested the return of Alemayehu's remains for reburial in Ethiopia. As of 2023, Buckingham Palace had denied the request, saying that it would be impossible to remove Alemayehu's remains "without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity". However, in September 2023, a lock of Alemayehu's hair was returned to Ethiopia, along with other artefacts looted from Magdala; a relative, Fasil Minas, expressed hope that this progress could lead to the eventual repatriation of the Prince's body.