Prince Philip

In 1939, he met Elizabeth, daughter of King George VI when she visited Royal Naval College, Dartmouth with her parents. They fell in love with each other and after her departure from there, remained in touch with each other through exchange of letters. In 1946, he asked the King for his daughter’s hand in marriage to which he agreed and they finally got married on November 20, 1947 at Westminster Abbey.

He has four children namely Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

He was born to Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and his wife Princess Alice, the eldest daughter of Louis Alexander Mountbatten. He was the youngest of five children, having four elder sisters and was brought up in Great Britain after his family was being forced to leave Greece post-World War I.

He first got admitted to an American school in Paris but shortly after that, was sent to the UK to attend Cheam School in 1928. He lived there with his maternal grandmother at Kensington Palace.

In 1933, he was sent to Schule Schloss Salem in Germany which was owned by the family of his brother-in-law Berthold, Margrave of Baden. After finishing two terms there he moved to Gordonstoun because of the rise of Nazism in Germany which led to an unsettling atmosphere there.

In 1939, he left Gordonstoun and joined the Royal Navy at Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, from where he graduated the next year as the top cadet in his course.

He served in World War II in the British forces where he was commissioned as a midshipman in early 1940. He spent four months on the battleship HMS Ramillies, Kent and Shropshire. In October, he was transferred to the battleship HMS Valiant in the Mediterranean fleet after Italy invaded Greece.

He was promoted to sub-lieutenant after few courses at Portsmouth in which he earned the top grade in four out of five sections of the qualifying examination. Soon he was appointed to HMS Wallace which was involved in allied invasion of Sicily.

On July 16, 1942, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and in October of the same year, he became the first lieutenant of HMS Wallace in the Royal Navy. After two years, he moved to the new destroyer HMS Whelp and in January 1946, was posted as an instructor at HMS Royal Arthur in Wiltshire.

On November 19, 1947, he was appointed to the highest order of Chivalry, ‘Order of the Garter’. He thereby received 17 different appointments and decorations in the Commonwealth, and 48 by foreign states. Soon he was made the chairman of the Coronation Commission and became first member of the royal family to fly in a helicopter and to visit the troops that were to participate in the ceremony.

In 1952, he was appointed Admiral of the Sea Cadet Corps, Colonel-in-chief of the British Army Cadet Force and Air Commodore-in-chief of the Air Training Corps. In the following year, he was made the Admiral of the Fleet, Captain General Royal Marines, Field Marshal, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom.

From 1961 to 1982, he served as UK president of the World Wildlife Fund followed by International president-ship from 1981 focusing on wildlife and environmental issues.

He is the patron of the Work Foundation and was president of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986. He also served as the chancellor of the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford and Wales.