1920: Royal Prince Visit

May 11, 2022

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand history, 11 May, 1920 one of the royal princes from Windsor Inc. was touring our country had arrived in the South Island. This was Prince Edward, the famous uncle to our current Queen Elizabeth II who became king for almost an entire year only to abdicate on 11 December 1936. Curiously enough, another Windsor Inc. prince, Harry, appeared on our screens this same week in 2022 in a virtual tour with Kiwi actors. Royals on tour are always selling something although having watched Harry’s bad comedy with the now comedy-estranged Rhys Darby it’s not too clear to me what the exiled prince was flogging. Ref. 2017: Meghan & Harry, AHNZ

Reading mainstream history books about Edward’s 1920 visit we see Statist praise going down most thickly. This, as we have seen, is in great contrast to his own confidential letters to his mistress that shame the hospitality of our spellbound ancestors. Ref. 1920: “Inane Maories danced & made weird noises at me!!”, AHNZ

State history accounts make out as if Edward, like Harry, was on a personal tour just like one of the people. In reality both men are part of a larger organism of retinue and entourage. For example, Edward rode along with his Chief of Staff Admiral Lionel Halsey, Scotland Yard detectives, the New Zealand Commissioner of Police, Media from Reuter’s and the NZ Press Association, and agents from the Internal Affairs and Railway Department, and the Member for Westland (Seddon) among others. The Royal motorcade from Nelson to the rail head at Reefton was sponsored by Newman Bros who provided the transport and drivers. However, they ran into a mishap at Inangahua on the evening of 11 May when the car carrying some of the media and bureaucrats swerved to avoid another and flipped nose-to-tail throwing the passengers into the scrub!

“Oh it’s a most hopeless & thankless and artificial job this one of Prince of Wales….Wanganui [is] really a miserable hole…Christ how sick I am of the type of women one meets out here…” – Edward’s correspondence, Ref. 1920: “Inane Maories danced & made weird noises at me!!”, AHNZ

“..Newmans got in touch with me and gave me the privilege of driving a 1914 Cadillac pilot car in the prince’s entourage…Cliff Newman actually drove the prince’s car..” – Chauffer for Royal Visit, The Press (1979); West Coast Recollect

However, it was the only one, and the driver, T. Watson, took they car almost past, but the slippery ground let the wheels skid, and in a moment the car turned a somersault, landing across a big ditch. The four occupants, Messrs. F. Coates (representing Reuters y Agency), F. Morgar (New Zealand Press Association), Taylor (Internal Affairs Department), and G. W. Turley (Railway Department) wen shot into the ditch through a thick mat of brambles which broke their fall and acted as a spring buffer to prevent the car crushing those underneath.” – Poverty Bay Herald (1920); Papers Past

The Prince survived the trip to the West Coast but was nearly killed again 2 months later on the West Australian leg of his tour.¹ (West Coast not lucky for princes?) In exchange for not dying, Edward had to put up with Hokitika hospitality.

He wrote of May 12, Hokitika: “We’ve just escaped from another painful one horse party where they had the most pricelessly funny old dances..which were hard to compete with though we did our best though the wretched women were too revolting for words in fact it was a proper rustic or village crowd, though it’s the mileu we’ve been living in every since Wellington.”

State History books have it another way though…

“The local folk practiced hard and strenuously,…it was not a fiasco, but it was a comedy. The Prince, unused to square dancing, decided to go his own way. “The confusion bewildered and upset the whole set, but what did it matter? The crowd of guests clustered round the dancers in the set – the Prince laughed his way into the hearts not only of the ones he did the chain with but of the by-standers and everything went merrily as any marriage ball.” – Greymouth, the first 100 Years, Jackson (1969)

After a through tour of Greymouth, which the Prince doubtless quietly detested, he was off to Christchurch by train to make more budget P. G. Wodehouse observations. One further indignity was the rumor of a jealous Greymouth RSA that plotted to ambush the prince’s car with the Union Jack flag in the road which would divert him into their club rooms for a deputation. It did not occur but the final indignity exiting the Coast came just before Moana when the train sped up and the prince’s carriage lurched him into spilling his entire glass much-needed spirits all over his waistcoat. Edward swore.

—
1 Narrow Escape, King Country Chronicle (1920); Papers Past

Image ref. Travalyst; Maori TV; NZ centre stage as Prince Harry announces new sustainable travel campaign, One News (10 May 2022)

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