Children's Order of Chivalry

The Children's Order of Chivalry was an English society which expressed its rules as "Gentleness, Honour and Love". Founded by English aristocrats in the late nineteenth century and enjoying royal patronage, the society grew quickly. It aimed to improve understanding and sympathy between rich and poor, and encouraged well-off children to correspond with, and occasionally host, poor children from the East End of London.

The society was established in 1893 by the Earl of Winchilsea and his wife the Countess, in memory of their only son, George Edward Henry, Viscount Maidstone ("Maidy"), who had died the previous year at the age of nine. Prior to his death, the child had discussed with his father the idea of establishing the Order. The bereaved parents were assisted in the foundation of the society by their daughter Lady Muriel Finch-Hatton (later famed for her many philanthropic works). Among its patrons were Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg who was the society's "Grand Princess"; the four Battenberg children of Princess Beatrice (Queen Victoria's youngest child) were members.

In 1898, the head office of the society was in London. The Order was still in existence in 1907.

Initially the membership was principally drawn from the counties of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. By 1895 the original membership of a dozen had expanded to over 10,000, with 300 associates over the age of 17 called the Elder Children. Five hundred of these children had established friendships with London children by that year. By the end of the following year the membership numbered 12,000, and reached 13,000 in 1898, the year of Lord Winchilsea's death.

The society's motto, quoting Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, 4.13.87, was "What's brave, what's noble, let's do it". This motto appeared on the logo together with a woodcut likeness of Maidy in an Eton collar. Its rules were "Gentleness, Honour and Love"; and its stated object was "to bind together, with the threefold cord of gentleness, honour and love, children belonging to every sphere of life, so that by kind words and deeds passing betwixt one and the other, more especially from the rich to the poor, a spirit of sympathy and large-heartedness may be encouraged in early life."

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