A grateful Buckingham Palace
has handed over to the Duchess of Cambridge a hefty sum of £300,000 to donate
to the charity of Princes William and Harry. The reason, well, it’s a thank-you
gesture from the Royals for lending her wedding dress to them for display
before the public, which went on to be a super hit.
It’s well known that it is
largely due to Duchess Kate’s magnetic appeal (the ‘Kate effect’) that the
Royal charitable foundation’s fortunes received a big boost, almost ten fold.
Aware of this fact, Princes William and Harry took a significant step last week
of changing the name of their joint foundation to include Catherine’s title,
thus recognizing her contribution to the foundation.
Any further proof of Duchess
Kate’s mass appeal can be gauged by the fact that a big cheque is already in
transit to the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
and Prince Harry, reports The Daily Telegraph.
A sum of £300,000 out of the
Royal Collection of the Palace have been given to the charity as a thank-you to
Duchess Kate for graciously permitting her priceless wedding dress to be
show-cased as center piece at the summer opening of Buckingham Palace to the
general public in 2011.
Catherine’s famous bridal gown,
designed by Sarah Burton, proved to be such a massive hit that it increased the
number of visitors to the Queen’s London
residence by 191,000. Official reports suggest that more than £10 million was
spent on admission tickets. This is an increase of almost £3.5 million from
2011.
Sales of royal memorabilia at the
palace’s shops were £3.87 million, a rise of nearly £1.7 million. Jonathan Marsden,
the Director of the Royal Collection informed: “Unprecedented numbers came to see
the Duchess’s wedding dress.”
Merchandises pertaining to the
royal wedding and Diamond Jubilee accounted for 75% of online sales by the
palace’s shops. Official statistics also show the Princes’ charity raising a
remarkable £4.8 million in 2011, compared with just £629,000 in 2010, before
the announcement of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s engagement.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
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