royalty

Why was the 1953-54 Royal Visit such a huge event for New Zealanders?

• This was the first time a reigning monarch had set foot in New Zealand. Previous royal visitors had either been sons or brothers of the monarch - Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh in 1869, Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York in 1901, Prince of Wales in 1920, Duke and Duchess of York in 1927, Duke of Gloucester in 1934-5.
• Hopes for a visit by the monarch had been raised over the previous decade:
  • There had been discussions of a visit by George VI in 1940, but the war prevented this.
  • A detailed itinerary was prepared for a tour by the king in March 1949, but he fell ill.
  • A shortened tour was planned for May 1952, and when the king again fell ill it was decided Princess Elizabeth would come instead. But at the first stop on this tour, in Africa, the young princess learned of her father's death and she returned home.
• The Queen's coronation in June 1953 heightened interest in royalty in New Zealand.
• The state was heavily involved in overseeing preparations for the tour and ensuring its success. Internal Affairs were the main organisers, but Tourist and Publicity, Defence, Railways (which supplied the special royal trains), Works, Maori Affairs, Police and the Education departments all put enormous energies into the tour.
• The war had strengthened New Zealanders' sense of their relationship with Britain. Where Britain went, New Zealand went. New Zealand's trade was overwhelmingly with Britain (67.5 of our exports in 1953, 56% of our imports), and British people were our most important immigrants (65% in 1953-54).
• By 1953 New Zealand had recovered from depression and war. Indeed the boom in wool prices created by the Korean War had carried New Zealand to the second highest standard of living in the world. There was a general satisfaction with New Zealand life and the Royal Visit became a way of presenting this modern paradise to the world.

The Queen and the Maori people

For many Maori the Royal Visit raised important issues about their place in New Zealand.

The Prince of Wales tours NZ

A Pastoral Paradise

Following her stay in Auckland and her visits to Waitangi, Hamilton and Rotorua, the Queen and Duke had a break for five days at Lake Rotoiti, and then flew to Gisborne and Napier. The theme for the next few days was the pastoral productivity of New Zealand. In Napier she was greeted with a two mile avenue of flowers and a visit to McLean Park where the highpoint was a display of shearing by Ivan and Godfrey Bowen.

Regalised

The constitutional arrangements of the British Empire changed greatly between the creation of the Imperial War Cabinet in 1917 and the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931.

By summoning dominion prime ministers to London to take part in a new Imperial War Cabinet, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George broke the old viceregal monopoly of official intergovernmental communications.

Then, in 1926 the Imperial Conference devised the Balfour formula of dominion status. This defined the Commonwealth as 'autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations'.

A Loyal People

While in Wellington, the capital, the Queen fulfilled her constitutional role. She opened Parliament and invested New Zealanders with honours. As head of the Church of England she laid the foundation stone of the Anglican cathedral, and as head of the Commonwealth's armed forces she laid a wreath at the cenotaph. Such events emphasised the loyalty of New Zealanders to the British Empire and Commonwealth.