Another long weekend is here, thanks to the birth of Queen Victoria, great-great-grandmother to our current queen, over two hundred years ago. Did you know that the first time a reigning monarch stepped foot in Canada was in 1939? (Although as the 17-year-old Prince Albert, he’d visited Canada on a six-month naval training cruise in 1913.)
Fans of The Crown will remember that young Prince Albert, as the second son, was never supposed to be king. When his father died, his older brother became King Edward VIII, only to abdicate a year later to marry the divorced American socialite, Wallis Simpson. Prince Albert stepped up, assuming the name King George VI. He and Queen Elizabeth were the parents of two daughters, Elizabeth (our current queen) and her sister Margaret.
The princesses were 13 and nine when they stayed home as their parents sailed to North America on the eve of World War II. The original plan to travel on a warship was changed to a liner in case the warship was needed. The tour lasted from May 15 to June 17, 1939, only three months before Britain declared war on Germany.
Enormous and enthusiastic crowds greeted them in what the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation dubbed “a majestic mayhem.” The king and
queen toured across Canada and back again, also spending four days in the United
States. Canada’s Prime Minister at the time, William Lyon Mackenzie King,
accompanied them at each stop—including Winnipeg.
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| King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Winnipeg, 1939 |
Like sportscasters, radio announcers all along the route worked hard to describe for their listeners the crowds and the royal walkabouts with play-by-play coverage: “The queen has just exited the car…now the king is being greeted by…the king and queen are being presented with…” and so on. When they reached Winnipeg, the royals were accompanied by Prime Minister King as usual, and by the city’s mayor, John Queen.
You know where this is going.
Rumor has it the radio announcer grew so frustrated trying to keep up with the actions of the king and the queen and Prime Minister King and Mayor Queen that he swore on air. The additional complication of royal umbrellas in the pouring rain probably didn’t help.
The swearing of the announcer cannot be substantiated. What would nowadays be laughed off and turned into hilarious memes for weeks might have meant the loss of a job in 1939.
June 4th brought their Majesties to my town, Portage la Prairie. Their tour included a parade down Campbell Street (which afterward became known as “Royal Road”), and attendance at a Sunday service at what is now Trinity United Church. They donated the baptismal font and Bible case. The pew in which they sat displays a special plaque.
The tour was considered a huge success and helped establish Queen Elizabeth’s relationship with Canada. She would visit 14 more times as the Queen Mother and become honorary colonel-in-chief of Canadian military regiments, and a patron of numerous Canadian charities. At the age of 100, she was appointed the country’s highest honor, the Order of Canada.
King George VI died in 1952. In 2022, the Queen Mother died five months shy of her 102nd birthday. Her daughter, Elizabeth II, now holds the record for the longest-reigning British monarch. In her Accession Day message this past February 5, in celebration of her Platinum Jubilee, Elizabeth renewed her commitment to a lifetime of public service, which she originally made on her 21st birthday in 1947: “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
I think her great-great-grandmother would be proud.
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