Ceremonies - Royal Visits Intinery
On 30 June 1953 the Royal Party set out from London on a trip to
Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to participate and officiate at the
Rhodes Centenary Celebrations. Both the Queen Mother Elizabeth and her
daughter Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret were part of the
entourage. They flew in a Comet jet airliner which was part of the
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) fleet.
The Comet touched down at about noon on the 1st of July at the newly
established airport about 11 miles outside of Salisbury, the capital
city. The Royal Party was welcomed by Sir John Kennedy, the Governor of
Southern Rhodesia. Their trip was prompted by the birthday centenary of
Cecil John Rhodes who was born on 5 July 1853 at Bishop’s Stortford in
Hertfordshire. The Royal Party boarded the Royal Train of 15 freshly
painted, ivory white coaches.
The Royal Party travelled in three air-conditioned coaches that had been
used for the 1947 Royal tour of South Africa. The British monarch then
was King George VI who had since passed on and was succeeded by Queen
Elizabeth II whose coronation was on the 2nd of June 1953. The coaches
were fully equipped with bedrooms, dining coach and a lounge section, a
bathroom with English bath crystals and soap tablets and a kitchen fully
equipped with delicacies imported from England.
On 3 July the Royal Party arrived in Bulawayo, a city that they had
visited for three days in 1947. In Southern Rhodesia’s second city (got
city status in 1943 on the occasion of its 50th birthday) they were met
by Mayor Colonel C M Newman. The Queen Mother inspected a Guard of
Honour drawn from the various units of the Southern Rhodesian
Territorial Forces.
The Royal Party was then driven through the city on an 11-mile journey
to the Government
House.
They were driven through the streets, ‘‘gay with flags and cheering
crowds’’. In the afternoon the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret
motored to the Queen’s
Ground where
the Queen Mother officially opened the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition by
pressing a button to open the gates to the Queen’s
Ground.
At the Queen’s
Ground the
Queen Mother and the Princess were led by European girls. Her car drove
slowly and at that moment the six-year-old Margaret Plathen proffered
some gifts to the Queen Mother and said, “From Convent High School,
please.”
“Thank you very much,” responded the Queen Mother. The boxes that
contained the gifts bore the photographs of the Queen and the Duke of
Edinburgh.
Both the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were presented with diamond
and aluminum brooches fashioned like the flame lily. The brooches were
in actual fact replicas of that given to the Queen by Southern Rhodesian
school children on the occasion of her 21st birthday. The presents were
presented by Colonel Sir Ellis Robins, the chairman of the Exhibition
Board.
On 4 July the Royal Party undertook a second tour of the Exhibition. The
Royal Party visited all the 18 countries’ pavilions. All African
countries south of the Sudan were present and the other countries
included the United Kingdom, Madagascar, Reunion and Zanzibar (now part
of Tanzania).
At each pavilion they were showered with gifts. At the Ugandan pavilion
the Queen Mother was presented with exquisitely made African drums.
Within the Exhibition grounds a model African Village had been
constructed. The Village turned out to be the most interesting feature
of the Exhibition. Here the Queen Mother was presented with a
magnificently crafted piece of ivory.
Also displaying their craftsmanship were the blacksmiths, basket
weavers, wood and horn carvers. The Royal visitors were presented with
numerous crafts. African artists showcased their fine dancing skills,
especially the Swazi dancers who performed in front of their huge
beehive hut. Mbira instruments with large gourds were played much to the
pleasure and amusement of the Queen Mother.
Since the occasion was to mark the Rhodes Centenary, the tour would have
been incomplete without the Queen Mother showering accolades on Cecil
Rhodes who she described as a ‘‘dreamer who, while his eyes might be on
a star, his feet were firmly planted on the ground’’. She went on to
describe Rhodes in superlative terms.
A mayoral garden party had been laid out for ‘‘all’’ the citizens of
Bulawayo. Of course ‘‘all’’ did not include the black residents. The
party was held in the Bulawayo (Central) Park. There the Queen Mother
met the widows of the Rhodesian pioneers. The occasion attracted no less
than 10 000 people.
In the morning of the next day the Royal Party attended a divine service
at St John’s Church where they were welcomed by the Bishop of
Matabeleland and the Archdeacon, the Venerable E Addington Hunt. The
service was followed by a visit to Barham Green Village, a recently
developed housing estate for coloured people.
In the evening it was time to attend an orchestral performance by the
Halle Orchestra. The gala performance, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli,
took place in the 3 000-seater Royal
Theatre in
the exhibition grounds. The
Royal Theatre had been specially built for the Rhodes Centenary
Exhibition.
The 5th of July had been pencilled as a day of rest. However, a
considerable number of whites felt the Royal Tour would not be complete
without a pilgrimage to Rhodes’ grave on Malindidzimu
(Malindandzimu) Hill within
the Matobo Hills. At the site, a Centenary Service was held. The 5 000
strong pilgrims clapped hands when the Queen Mother and Princess
Margaret took their seats next to Rhodes’ grave. In 1947, the Royal
Party had also visited Rhodes’ grave.
Later the Royal Party made a courtesy call at Queen
Mary House and St
Gabriel’s Home.
The next leg of the visit took the Royal Party to Luveve
African Village.
The government settlement was established in 1936 to accommodate 500
African families. The settlement was named after a Chief Native
Commissioner named Lt Colonel C L Carbutt.
While working among the Zulu in South Africa, Carbutt had been nicknamed
Nomveve, a word for a butterfly. When he arrived in Matabeleland his
name was changed slightly to Luveve. The Ndebele also corrupted his name
Carbutt to Khabothi and a farm in the Inyathi area goes by the two names
of Luveve and Khabothi.
Upon arrival at Luveve the Queen Mother was welcomed by a brass band and
singing and ululating African women with some of them having come from
as far as the Belgian Congo. Luveve was at the time equipped with two
government primary schools, a clinic and a post office. However, at the
time it had not been found necessary to build a police station. The
Queen Mother and her entourage visited a bungalow home of one African
family.
The visit to Bulawayo ended on 6 July 1953 with a pageant in the Exhibition
Park depicting
scenes from Rhodes’ life. In the evening the Royal Party left Bulawayo
aboard the Royal Train to Gwelo where a tour of the Midlands towns began
in earnest.
