The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh continued their six-month Commonwealth Tour in Australia when they arrived in Tasmania on this day in 1954, following Tours around the United Kingdom after the Queen’s Coronation. The stops in Bermuda, Jamaica, Panama, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand and Australia were followed by visits to Ceylon, Aden, Uganda, Malta and Gibraltar.
Following the visit to Canberra and a stop in Sydney, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh sailed into Tasmania, where were greeted by a small flotilla of local sailing craft and crowds at Battery Point as they sailed down the River Derwent to their ship’s berth at Prince’s Wharf.
Following a Children’s Rally at the North Hobart Oval, a visit to the Repatriation General Hospital for Servicemen, a commemorative tree-planting at Anglesea Barracks, the unveiling of a Sesquicentenary Memorial at Victoria Dock, there was a spectacular State Reception held in honour of the Queen (wearing Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara, the Greville Ruby Necklace and Queen Mary’s Diamond Stomacher) at the City Hall in Hobart.
Before the State reception at City Hall tonight in honour of the Queen and Duke, Dame Gertrude Cosgrove, wife of the Premier, tripod on her long skirt on the steps of the hall and stumbled. However. with great aplomb she picked herself up, assured attendants that she was not hurt, adjusted her tiara and was ready to meet the Queen. More than 2,000 attended the Royal Ball. Many of the guests stood around and stared while pre sensations were being made to the Royal couple.
Two days later, the Queen (wearing the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara and the Queen’s City of London Fringe Necklace) presided over the opening of the 5th Session of the 30th Tasmanian Parliament in Hobart, ahead of an investiture and a Garden Party at Government House.
At noon the people saw their Queen open Parliament amidst pomp and ceremony that would do honour to London. For the first time, the robes, uniforms and ceremonial mantles of the men outshone the women’s dresses. The four Judges of the Supreoe Court were dressed in scarlet robes and wigs. It was a brief ceremony, but an imposing one.
In the evening, the Queen (wearing Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik Tiara and the King George VI Sapphire Suite) and Duke fo Edinburgh presided over a State Ball at the City Hall in Hobart.
The civic ball was the climax. The crowd outside was so determined to see as much of the Queen as it could that while it waited for her to leave the City Hall it booed and jeered officials and guests who gathered at the entrance and obscued the view. Most popular figure was a sergeant who diplomatically removed V.l.ps when they unwittingly obstructed the people’s view
