The warship had been outfitted to accommodate the Royal couple and their entourage. They travelled via the Panama Canal and then across the Pacific via Tahiti, Fiji and New Zealand.
Later known as King George VI and Elizabeth, his Queen Consort, after the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, the two landed at Farm Cove in Sydney on Saturday, March 26, 1927.
Officially, they were in Australia to open its Parliament House but their visit was also notionally to thank Australia for the support that it had given the mother country during the Great War.
As a result, the Royal couple’s tour was a gruelling one that visited every state.
It was heavy on greeting Victoria Cross recipients and sick and disabled soldiers. At all public events, the two were met by enthusiastic crowds.
On April 25, Sir John Monash and his staff led the Anzac Day march past the Duke and Duchess who stood in front of the Victorian Parliament. Sir John was followed by 25,000 veterans proudly wearing their medals, including 29 recipients of the Victoria Cross.
King George V and the Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes both desperately wanted the tour, each for their own reasons. Britain was in seriously straitened economic circumstances after the Great War.
The King wanted to resurrect British trading interests in the Empire, in the face of growing Indian nationalism. Hughes wanted recognition of, and reward for, the 60,000 lives that Australia had sacrificed in the Great War.
Even the trivial and incidental costs of the trip became the subject of much argument and bitterness. The Duke and Duchess of York ended up paying for most of their everyday expenses.
Parliament House to be opened is now ‘old’ Parliament House. Until its opening in 1927, all sessions of Federal Parliament had been held in the Victorian Parliament House in Spring St.
The Royal couple had been married just four years before. As it was believed that the Duke was unlikely ever to become king, they had travelled widely in Africa and gone big game hunting in 1924 and 1925.
For the five months of this tour to Australia and New Zealand, their daughter Elizabeth was left behind. She had been born the year before.
The Duchess was not happy about leaving her daughter behind. She poured out her misery in her diary — “Feel very miserable at leaving the baby. Went up and played with her & she was so sweet“.
On most weekends of the tour, the couple stayed privately, presumably with royal supporters.
King George V sent a flood of strict instructions, advice and complaints in telegrams regarding protocol and formalities.
He even gave instructions as to the clothing the Duke and Duchess should wear. Imagine his annoyance when the Australian press gave gushing coverage to every item of clothing worn by the Duchess.
— John Barry
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