Annual Engagements by Members of the Royal Family 2011-2013


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Main conclusion: there aren't 15 full time working royals, at most there are 12. However this isn't noted anyway, is not set in stone and in the grand scheme of life doesn't matter. :)

I agree again , it doesn't matter
 
I would class Princess Alexandra as a part time royal, along with W, K and H.
 
I think the list should be determined by The Queen in the CC - those who are listed there are:

HM The Queen
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
HRH The Prince of Wales
HRH The Duchess of Cornwall
HRH The Duke of Cambridge
Prince Henry
HRH The Duke of York
HRH The Duchess of Cambridge
HRH The Earl of Wessex
HRH The Countess of Wessex
HRH The Princess Royal
HRH The Duke of Gloucester
HRH The Duchess of Gloucester
HRH The Duke of Kent
HRH The Duchess of Kent
HRH Princess Alexandra

And before anyone attacks me over putting Kate below Harry and Andrew that is the order that The Queen has the list on the British Monarchy Court Circular website. Also listed there is HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and HRH Princesses Margaret and Alice - presumably because the The Queen knows that people do like to look back and see what people did on a given day and this information being available lessens personal enquiries to the palace for that information)

Beatrice, Michael and Marie-Christine have been mentioned in the CC once each this year while Tim has been mentioned 11 times. Kate has done 24 - hardly close to full-time and really for a woman who doesn't have another job she really hasn't done much at all - Harry who works full-time in the army has done more than the unemployed Kate. I don't accept that a pregnant woman can't work and the excuses for her are wearing very thin - she isn't called Duchess DoLittle for nothing.

Only 4 members are over 100 at over a third of the year done - Charles (200) Anne Andrew and The Queen.
 
In fact 15 is number of working royals (without "full time").
Now there are 15 royals officially representing british monarchy.
 
I have never heard the term full time or part time royal before and don't actually know what it means. If you are royal, I presume you are royal 24/7!
Full time work in my opinion is working a minimum 35 hours a week. Part time work I think averages 20 hours a week. My partner works around 60 hours a week including work during the commute which is almost double a full time job so does that make normal full time jobs part time?
Do cigarette breaks, popping to the vending machine and chatting to your colleagues get taken off the actual hours you work, cos if that's the case most people I know are part-timers!!
 
I have never heard the term full time or part time royal before and don't actually know what it means. If you are royal, I presume you are royal 24/7!

There's a huge difference between being a full time working royal and a full time royal ;)
 
Not many of those 15 "full time Royals" actually work full time. The Countess of Wessex only works 3 days a week as she has small children, and she has only worked 3 days a week for a long time. The older generation (Duke of Kent, Gloucester's and Alexandra) don't work 5 days a week.

I agree with iluvebertie's statement regarding Catherine's small number. She may be pregnant but she can still do work. She isn't the first, nor is she the last, Royal wife to be pregnant and they have all worked harder than she has. Her workload could be reduced obviously, but she could still do more than a few appearances. Sophie worked more than Catherine has done when she was pregnant, even with James and she stopped working in October before his birth. She worked 2 days before she had Louise, but that was a different circumstance. Perhaps Catherine is in a precious condition...It as different in the 60's and 70's for pregnant Royals as pregnant women were not often "in public", but it's different nowadays.
 
How many engagements are the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge expected/likely to carry out each year once they become full time working royals? Would the Wessexes be a good comparison as they also have young children? Is the increased number of engagements likely to offset the reduction by HM, DofE and Princess Alexandra?

Edward is considered "full time", whereas Sophie is considered "part time" as she only works 3 days a week, in theory. But as Iluvbertie said, the Wessex's are far down the line of succession that you can't really compare. William will work more than Catherine when he becomes full time as Catherine will be part time like Sophie, as they will have children. Unless they become full time Royals when Charles is King, then their children may be a bit older...Though how Catherine can get anymore part time than she is now is beyond me.
 
Are we going there again?
 
We seem to always end up there.
 
Does anyone know whether Princess Alice was still listed in the CC at the time she died? Or did she ever totally stop engagements?
 
At what number of engagements would the Duchess of Cambridge be considered full time? 300? She has a long way to go from her 111 last year then. :lol: At least she's heading in the right direction. :flowers:
 
Maybe we always end up there because it's a suitable answer.

Exactly. The sad thing is the public, who are her fan club, don't seem to mind when she does make an appearance every few weeks. There are plenty of photos snapped of her and the adoring crowd gazing after her.
 
I think Catherine is doing a good job. Her workload will continue to increase. I don't understand the need to continue to pick on her though. We have known for some time now the William & Catherine aren't full time royals yet and pretty much work around their military life. They also have to get things together for the baby.
 
Exactly. The sad thing is the public, who are her fan club, don't seem to mind when she does make an appearance every few weeks. There are plenty of photos snapped of her and the adoring crowd gazing after her.

When Queen Mary (Wife of George V) First came into the Scene When Victoria was still Queen how work much did she do when she was Pregnant with Edward VIII and George VI?

I do agree with what is being said about Kate. She may be pregnant but could do more, However She is now Latte into her Pregnancy and we don't know if her Doctors told her not to do a lot. She had Severe Morning Sickness at the start so her Doctors may have told her not to do much. We don't know,0. I think it will increase as time goes on.
 
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When Queen Mary (Wife of George V) First came into the Scene When Victoria was still Queen how work much did she do when she was Pregnant with Edward VIII and George VI?

I do agree with what is being said about Kate. She may be pregnant but could do more, However She is now Latte into her Pregnancy and we don't know if her Doctors told her not to do a lot. She had Severe Morning Sickness at the start so her Doctors may have told her not to do much. We don't know,0. I think it will increase as time goes on.

It was a different era when Queen Mary was pregnant. Women who were pregnant were hidden away and treated like they had an illness.

Of course we don't know what her doctors are saying, and rightly so but we saw more of Sophie when she was pregnant with James than we have see of Catherine. I use Sophie as an example because when she was pregnant with Louise she had a placental abruption which nearly killed her, and when pregnant with James she was very high risk (and she was an older mother) yet we saw her a lot more.
 
Does anyone know whether Princess Alice was still listed in the CC at the time she died? Or did she ever totally stop engagements?

I'm confused by what you are expecting. If a person performs a duty they are mentioned, if they don't they aren't. It's not as if the CC lists everyone everyday and notes they did nothing on that particular day.

I have just checked the CC and Princess Alice was mentioned as being represented at a service on 15 October 2004. She died on 29 October 2004.
 
Princess Alice is still on the CC list so would have been listed on all occasions she did an official engagement, or was represented officially at an engagement.

A reminder that not everything a royal does is listed in the CC e.g. Beatrice and Eugenie went to Germany earlier this year and represented the British Government but that trip wasn't mentioned at all in the CC and nor was Prince Michael's recent trip to Trinidad.
 
Edward is considered "full time", whereas Sophie is considered "part time" as she only works 3 days a week, in theory. But as Iluvbertie said, the Wessex's are far down the line of succession that you can't really compare. William will work more than Catherine when he becomes full time as Catherine will be part time like Sophie, as they will have children. Unless they become full time Royals when Charles is King, then their children may be a bit older...Though how Catherine can get anymore part time than she is now is beyond me.


Number of days worked isn't a real indicator as Sophie has worked on 35 days up to 9th May this year - comparable to Edward 38, Andrew 36 and The Queen 38.
 
Just a note as to why the weekly update wasn't done - still waiting for the monarchy website to put up last Thursday's information - currently still 'no results found' but that may change tonight and will then update to 16th May tomorrow.
 
Not many of those 15 "full time Royals" actually work full time. The Countess of Wessex only works 3 days a week as she has small children, and she has only worked 3 days a week for a long time. The older generation (Duke of Kent, Gloucester's and Alexandra) don't work 5 days a week.

I don't know where you got the '3 days a week' for Sophie as she clearly doesn't work that much - 34 days out of 129 is about 25% of days she is working and that is about the same as Edward, Andrew and The Queen.

As her children are now both at school that is also no longer the case.
 
Frankly none of them work full time if all you count are public engagements - not even the Queen.

You are supposed to be people who understand how e monarchy works. What they do as per the court circular is not everything. How often do you need to be reminded?
 
If you need info from the times let me know
 
Catherine has been pretty busy and she's done a great deal of official engagements. Few more are to come before the baby is born. I'm actually proud of how she's handling her royal duties.

She's not going to satisfy everybody but she's doing what she suppose to do.
 
Not many of those 15 "full time Royals" actually work full time. The Countess of Wessex only works 3 days a week as she has small children, and she has only worked 3 days a week for a long time. The older generation (Duke of Kent, Gloucester's and Alexandra) don't work 5 days a week.

I agree with iluvebertie's statement regarding Catherine's small number. She may be pregnant but she can still do work. She isn't the first, nor is she the last, Royal wife to be pregnant and they have all worked harder than she has. Her workload could be reduced obviously, but she could still do more than a few appearances. Sophie worked more than Catherine has done when she was pregnant, even with James and she stopped working in October before his birth. She worked 2 days before she had Louise, but that was a different circumstance. Perhaps Catherine is in a precious condition...It as different in the 60's and 70's for pregnant Royals as pregnant women were not often "in public", but it's different nowadays.
IMVHO the senior royals (HM, DoE, PoW) will have the final say on when the grandchildren and their spouses will begin to do more royal engagements. It's still Elizabeth's reign and it appears that she'd rather have her children and cousins in the forefront and not her grandchildren.

Now I do believe that her cousins will begin to do fewer engagements on her behalf and that she'll be moving the Cambridges on to the full time list in the near future. Until then she seems to have things just the way she wants them to be. :)
 
I think it's really easy to be a bit unfair in the debate as to how much Catherine - or any other royal - does or doesn't do.

It's almost as though there's a magic number of engagements that each individual must perform in order to seem as though they're worth the investment, and if they don't reach it then they're a waste of money. Similarly, there's this magic age at which royals are expected to drastically reduce their engagements, and if they don't then it's because other younger royals aren't stepping up (as though there is an overall magic number of engagements that the family must perform each year).

To me this is a bit unfair. Each royal seems to take on the number of engagements that they're comfortable doing. We don't know how much time they each spend preparing for various engagements or doing less noteworthy but still important duties; we don't get to see what they do beyond what the press (or papparazzi) is there to witness and photograph. It was said awhile back that Catherine had been volunteering with a local scout troop outside of her official duties, but we didn't know because no one was there to take a picture of it. Simply put we don't know what a lot of the royals do outside of their official engagements, and without knowing that how are we really to say that someone who performs fewer engagements is lazy?

What's more is that there seems to be this expectation that William and Catherine (and to a lesser extent Harry) need to be doing a lot more because they're in the direct line of succession. The question that I have here is how much have previous grandchildren of the monarchs been expected to do? How many duties did Edward VIII or George V do when they were the heir to the heir? Even look at Princes Andrew and Edward - both were given the opportunity to lead more private lives for a time with fewer duties.

What's more is that when William and Catherine got married it was said that Catherine would be eased into taking on more duties - presumably at a rate that the family approves of - similar to how Camilla and Sophie have both eased into things more. This has given the three of them a chance to get used to the life of being a royal, instead of simply throwing them into the deep end, as with what happened with Diana. Catherine was supposed to slowly work into doing more duties by the end of year two of her marriage. By my count year two just ended last month, and we have seen her gradually take on more duties. Sure she may not be a full time royal, but I don't think anyone really expects her to be full time in the last month or so of her pregnancy, or immediately after the baby's born - which brings the question, why bother having her go full time in May only to reduce her duties in June? Why not just let her continue as part time until after the baby's born and things are settled for them? Is there really any need for her to rush into being a full time royal?
 
What is the reason for this discussion? Do the british people feel that less money should be spend on the royal family?
 
The British Monarchy website now has the 17th May up but nothing for the 16th - Cepe - can you check for me? Thanks.
 
What is the reason for this discussion? Do the british people feel that less money should be spend on the royal family?

There is no reason for the discussion and the less knowledgable British people believe the BRF all leech off the taxpayer.
 
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