Royal Alfred Hotel

Known in the earliest part of the nineteenth century as the Union Inn, No 28 William Street became the Royal Alfred Hotel in 1844 and later more simply just the Royal Alfred. The reason for the renaming was undoubtedly the birth of Queen Victoria’s fourth child Prince Alfred Ernest Albert, affectionately known as “Affie” and later to be made Duke of Edinburgh. Alfred would later visit Plymouth on a number of occasions – it was he who laid the foundation stone for the rebuilding of Smeaton’s Tower on the Hoe in 1882. Sadly however Alfred died before his mother, in 1900, at the age of 55, he was the third of Victoria’s children to die in her lifetime, strangely she also lost three son-in-laws too.

As for the pub itself, it closed in September 1959, the same month that this photograph was taken. William Street was closed soon afterwards and the land incorporated within the new extension to the Keyham Yard.

Licensees

1812 - John Townshend
1824 - W Traher
1830 - Lewis Lescott
1844 - Joshua Hancock
1867 - Edwin Crowder
1873 - Emma Vosper
1875 - Frederick Ackland
1883 - John Morrish
1888 - A Leatherby
1893 - Charles Brailey
1895 - F Downey
1896 - W Law
1897 - George Holmes
1907 - Mrs Holmes
1908 - Henrietta Wevell
1926 - Eric Hill
1929 - Richard Pengelly
1950 - Ivor Powell
1956 - Archibald Feeney