The King's Birthday

The eldest child of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was born Charles Philip Arthur George in 1948, at Buckingham Palace on 14 November. He became heir apparent at three, when Elizabeth acceded to the throne on the death of her father, in 1952. As heir apparent, Charles adopted, as tradition dictated by the Charter of King Edward III, the titles Duke of Cornwall and, in Scottish peerage, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. As a nine-year-old, Charles was given two further titles: Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. 

The young Prince Charles was educated at Hill House, Cheam and Gordonstoun schools. As a teen, Charles’s education included two terms in Australia, at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus, near the Victorian town of Mansfield, in 1966, which, it has been said, he considered the most enjoyable period of his education. The black-and-white stamp photograph shows a smiling Prince Charles on his arrival in Sydney from Britain, before beginning attending Timbertop. Charles became the first member of the royal family to gain a bachelor’s degree when he graduated from Cambridge University in 1970, having studied archaeology, anthropology and history. 

In 1971, Prince Charles joined the military, training with the Royal Air Force before entering a career in the Royal Navy, until 1976. His role with the military is now to promote the armed forces, support veteran interests and recognise the United Kingdom’s military history and heritage.

In 1981, Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in a much anticipated and celebrated ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. The couple divorced in 1996, at which time their sons, Princes William and Harry, were aged 14 and 11 respectively. A year later, Diana died in a car accident in Paris. 

On 9 April 2005, Prince Charles remarried, wedding Camilla Parker Bowles, with whom he had a long-standing relationship, at the Windsor Guildhall, and after which she became known as the Duchess of Cornwall.

Charles has long had a busy public life and undertaken an increasingly heavy haul of royal duties and public appearances, especially over the last years of the late Queen’s life. Two of his enduring personal passions, which he has advanced through his work and profile, have been the environment and architecture. 

His deep concern for the environment dates to 1970 at least, and in more recent years he has spoken out on the need to act against climate change. He is an impassioned advocate of sustainability – both social and environmental and established the Prince’s Foundation, with its guiding philosophy of “harmony”, to promote and embed ethics and practices of sustainability to create resilient communities.

The foundation is just one of more than 20 charities that the king has played a key role in establishing. Others include the Prince’s Trust, and the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, which like the foundation, seeks to transform lives and build community sustainability through a program of focused grants.