Visiting the Family and Introducing the Royals: British Royal Tours of the Dominions in the Twentieth Century and Beyond

Abstract

Until the early twentieth century, colonial tours by British royals were rare, and the 1911 Delhi Durbar, where George V and Mary were crowned Emperor and Empress of India, marked the first time a reigning monarch had visited his overseas realms. As the century progressed, such imperial visits become increasingly frequent, and Elizabeth II is the most widely travelled monarch in history. Royal tours of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa were different from those to other outposts because of the ‘Dominion’ status of the four countries (until South Africa became a republic in 1961), and because of the kinship felt to bind the monarch to settler populations. Such tours provided opportunities for the sovereign and family members to manifest the monarchy in the flesh to distant ‘relations’, wave the flag of Empire (and the Commonwealth), and express appreciation for the sacrifices of Dominion soldiers in the South African War and the World Wars. Tours, however, evolved in response to changing conditions in the Dominions, the Empire and the wider world, as well as the particular personalities of royal visitors and the political intentions of their hosts. There were also great differences in ways in which various groups—such as men and women— figured in and responded to tours. Furthermore, the changing place in the tours of Māori in New Zealand and Indigenous people in Australia reveals much about the position of native populations in the Dominions and their special relationship with the monarchy.