A forgotten anniversary
Empire Day (24 May), was celebrated widely in New Zealand from 1903 and was a major event in the Vice-regal calendar.
Why? - Empire Day
Why Empire Day?
'This is the 'Union Jack'; and, now that Empire Day has come round once more, you will like to hear its history. It is really a coloured picture from a history-book, telling of things that happened long, long before you were born'.
New Zealand School Journal, Part I, May 1910
When? - Empire Day
When did we celebrate Empire Day?
24 May, Queen Victoria's birthday, was Empire Day. Most people welcomed this link to 'Queen Victoria the Good' in the days when the celebration of the sovereign's birthday changed with each new monarch.
Our first Empire Day
Empire Day begins, 1903
'If it can be arranged without unduly dislocating trade and unnecessarily duplicating holidays, there is every reason why the fundamental political relationship of the British peoples should be popularised by the general celebration of Empire Day'.
New Zealand Herald, 24 May 1912
What happened? - Empire Day
What they did on Empire Day
'Into one imperial whole
One with Britain heart and soul,
One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne'New Zealand School Journal, Part III, June 1917
Children and Empire Day
'So we'll do our best while we're children
To grow up kind and true,
To keep up the fame of our Empire's name
And the old Red, White and Blue''Our Flag', New Zealand School Journal, Part I, June 1921
Children were key targets for Empire Day. Lord Meath's Empire Day messages encouraged them to celebrate the history of British royalty or the Empire. 'Remember brave warriors, pioneers, sea captains, 'Queen Victoria the Good'' ', he said in 1912.
Bledisloe and Empire Day
Lord Bledisloe and Empire Day
'There is no part of the British Commonwealth to which separatism is more fatal or familiarity more essential than this sun-kissed Dominion of sturdy Britons and loyal natives, which finds a market for its exports almost exclusively in the Motherland'.
Lord Bledisloe, 'Empire Readjustment', in Ideals of Nationhood, 1935.
Empire Day's end
Rise of the Commonwealth
'For, notwithstanding many pious and platitudinous observations to the contrary, the 'post-Britannic, 'de-Britannicised' Commonwealth was not the fulfilment, but the antithesis (indeed, negation) of empire - a voluntary organisation run by a secretary-general and pledged to promote equality, rather than a mandatory organisation presided over by a king-emperor and pledged to uphold hierarchy'.
David Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 2001.
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