Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in Newfoundland on this day in 1951, at the end of their extensive Tour of Canada, different phases of which we have been individually covering over the past few weeks. Following a busy Summer, with the Opening of the Festival of Britain, the Danish State Visit, the Norwegian State Visit, the Tour of Canada was the first sign of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke, who had given up his Naval Career, becoming full-time working Royals in the last few months of King George VI’s life, ahead of her Accession to the Throne.
Princess Elizabeth in Quebec | Ottawa | Toronto | Winnipeg | British Colombia | Washington, D.C | New Brunswick | Halifax | Charlottetown | Newfoundland
Embed from Getty ImagesIt's #ThrowbackThursday... Royal edition!
Here's Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip with the Rt. Rev. P.S. Abraham (Lord Bishop of Newfoundland) at the @anglcathstj on November 11, 1951 (photo from the Simonson Collection) #nlhistory #nlheritage @hfnlca pic.twitter.com/GJflRCEWaD
— NL Public Libraries (@NLPubLibraries) October 24, 2019
Embed from Getty ImagesJR Smallwood with Princess Elizabeth and Philip. Visit to St John's 1951. #TheCrown Photo by Ruggles. @MUNQEII pic.twitter.com/hn4SkiIWW4
— MUN_asc (@MUN_asc) October 9, 2019
Princess Elizabeth visit to St John's 1951. Motorcade. Any ideas where? Queen's Road would be appropriate. @MUNQEII Photo by Ruggles. #TheCrown pic.twitter.com/TcBQht3N7H
— MUN_asc (@MUN_asc) October 9, 2019
Embed from Getty ImagesEmbed from Getty Images#royal #flashback "Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, are saluted by Captain Ernest Tisdall and his men on the deck of the RCN Cruiser 'Ontario', docked in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada, November 1951. pic.twitter.com/BFWKZoNFGx
— Mace (@RoyaleVision) November 5, 2020
Embed from Getty Images#1 "Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, looking out to sea on the deck of the HMS Ontario on their way to Newfoundland, Canada, November 15th 1951
#2 "on the deck of the HMCS Ontario leaving Newfoundland after a Royal visit, Canada, November 14th 1951 🤔 pic.twitter.com/AFF6TLNZfr
— Mace (@RoyaleVision) November 15, 2018
Embed from Getty Images
It's #ThrowbackThursday... Royal edition!
Here's Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip with the Rt. Rev. P.S. Abraham (Lord Bishop of Newfoundland) at the @anglcathstj on November 11, 1951 (photo from the Simonson Collection) #nlhistory #nlheritage @hfnlca pic.twitter.com/GJflRCEWaD
JR Smallwood with Princess Elizabeth and Philip. Visit to St John's 1951. #TheCrown Photo by Ruggles. @MUNQEII pic.twitter.com/hn4SkiIWW4
— MUN_asc (@MUN_asc) October 9, 2019Princess Elizabeth visit to St John's 1951. Motorcade. Any ideas where? Queen's Road would be appropriate. @MUNQEII Photo by Ruggles. #TheCrown pic.twitter.com/TcBQht3N7H
— MUN_asc (@MUN_asc) October 9, 2019#royal #flashback "Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, are saluted by Captain Ernest Tisdall and his men on the deck of the RCN Cruiser 'Ontario', docked in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada, November 1951. pic.twitter.com/BFWKZoNFGx
— Mace (@RoyaleVision) November 5, 2020#1 "Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, looking out to sea on the deck of the HMS Ontario on their way to Newfoundland, Canada, November 15th 1951
#2 "on the deck of the HMCS Ontario leaving Newfoundland after a Royal visit, Canada, November 14th 1951 🤔 pic.twitter.com/AFF6TLNZfr
In St. John’s, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh attended Divine Service at the Anglican Church on their last Sunday in Canada, and the following day drove from Government house to Portugal Cove, where they boarded the ferry Maneco, with the sounds of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and the Newfoundland ‘Squid-Jigging’ sea chanty playing as they made the forty-mile journey to the Empress of Scotland, waiting to carry them home again
Today from St. John’s, Nfld in 1951 Princess Elizabeth broadcast to all Canadians: “Wherever we have been in the 10 provinces, in your cities, towns, villages...through forests, prairies & mountains, we’ve been welcomed with warmth that made us feel we belong to Canada.” #cdnhist pic.twitter.com/nj62L6lACv
— Canadian Crown 🇨🇦 (@Canadian_Crown) November 12, 2020
Today from St. John’s, Nfld in 1951 Princess Elizabeth broadcast to all Canadians: “Wherever we have been in the 10 provinces, in your cities, towns, villages...through forests, prairies & mountains, we’ve been welcomed with warmth that made us feel we belong to Canada.” #cdnhist pic.twitter.com/nj62L6lACv
— Canadian Crown 🇨🇦 (@Canadian_Crown) November 12, 2020
The previous evening, Princess Elizabeth (wearing her Bahrain Pearl Earrings and Diamond Fringe Necklace) had made a Farewell Radio Broadcast from Government House in St. John’s:
For five weeks, we have travelled through this vast and splendid land of Canada, and now we have come once more to the Atlantic. Tomorrow we set sail for England and the movement has come when I must say good-bye and thank you. It is not easy for me to say either of these things,
It is not easy to say good-bye because, although I am going to a country which is my first home, and although I am happy to be returning to my family and my children, I am also leaving a country which has become a second home in every sense. Wherever we have been throughout the ten provinces, in your great cities, in your towns, in your villages, and indeed in almost every mile that we have travelled through fields, forests, prairies and mountains, we have been welcomed with a warmth of heart that has made us feel how truly we belong to Canada.
Nor is it easy to say thank you, because no words of mine can express what I should like to tell you. We have seen and heard so much that has moved our imaginations and touched our hearts. We shall take with us memories that will always draw us back to this country; the towering buildings of your big cities and the charm of your smaller communities, the blue skies and golden colours of autumn- or, as I am now learning to call it, the fall- and the trees and fields beneath the first snow of winter all the beauty and majesty of Canada. I thank you for having shown me these things. I thank you, too, for the glimpse you have given me of the greatness of this nation and the even greater future which is within its grasp.
I have seen this future in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of your children and have heard it in their voices. For as long as I live I shall remember and cherish fondly the greetings which came to us each day from those young people. I pray that their lot in this land will always continue to be a happy one.
I am well aware that the acclaim you have given us, which has often seemed to me to have the breadth and immensity of the sea, has had a far deeper meaning in it than a personal welcome. And this has often made me think of the words spoken by the Governor- General in Ottawa during the first days of our visit. He said then that the link with the Crown was a thing of real and tangible strength and one of the most important factors in uniting the people of the Commonwealth into one great brotherhood. You have shown me the reality of this, and I thank you for it.
Destiny has given me the privilege of being able to live my life for the service of that brotherhood: in these five weeks you have given me a new strength and inspiration which I know will always help me in the future. For that I thank you and say, not good-bye, but au revoir.