A half-length portrait, to the left, showing Prince Albert, the Duke of York (later George VI) in a flag officer’s undress uniform from 1921. He is wearing his cap. The portrait was painted from photographs in about 1950. It is signed ‘Wales Smith’.
Prince Albert embarked on his naval training at Osborne and Dartmouth between 1909 and 1912. He served in HMS ‘Collingwood’ and HMS ‘Malaya’ during the First World War, seeing action at Jutland in 1916, where served in a gun turret of the ‘Collingwood’. He also trained as a pilot in the fledgling Royal Naval Air Service, becoming one of the first officers of the newly instituted RAF in April 1918.