Visit of Queen Elizabeth IIPrint Page

The tree, planted by Queen Elizabeth II, commemorates her visit to Western Australia in 1954.

Elizabeth II was the first reigning monarch of Australia to set foot on Australian soil, coming ashore at Farm Cove, Sydney, on 3 February 1954. She had two years earlier been en route to Australia when her father died while she was on a private visit to Kenya, forcing her to return to the United Kingdom. Once finally in Australia, with her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, she undertook a journey through the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, including greeting 70,000 ex-servicemen and women at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and opening the Australian Parliament in Canberra.

Call a spade a spade and you'll have to admit that the two trees planted by the Royal couple near the King's Park War Memorial were planted on March 27, 1954. But the inscription on the Queen's spade reads: With this spade Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II planted a tree on April 1,1954, to commemorate her visit to Western Australia. The inscription on the Duke's spade is similar. The faces of the spades were engraved before the last-minute alterations to the Royal tour itinerary were made. The inscriptions were not altered nor were new spades prepared. Whether this was because of lack of time or the whim of an official who saw a chance to keep posterity chuckling over the inscriptions is not known.

Before the Duke used his spade, he read the inscription. lt's safe to say that he knew what day it was. The Queen merely gave her spade a glance. The spades themselves have no background of tradition. They are as unsophisticated and workmanlike as the State produced them. Both about four feet long, they have small, steel blades and T-shaped jarrah handles. Before their purchase from a city hardware store they looked like any other spade. The blades were chrome-plated and inscribed and the handles polished. The spades are to hang in the board room at King's Park and, no doubt, their inscriptions will make history. The trees they were used to plant were eucalypt camaldulensis, a gum with a medium foliage which grows to a height of 20 to 25 ft.
Western Mail (Perth), 1^st April 1954.

Queen Elizabeth II (21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was the longest serving English monarch, who reigned from 6 February 1952 to 8 September 2022 a period of over 70 years.

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