Queen Elizabeth II in Te Awamutu, 1954.
Meghan Hawkes takes us back to 1954 – and news of the Queen’s visit to Te Awamutu.
Queen Elizabeth, Te Awamutu 1954
During Queen Elizabeth’s tour of Waikato every farm gate and road junction, every village and town offered a truly royal welcome during a 190-mile drive through the countryside, Her Majesty being acclaimed by at least 100,000 people.
There was hardly a moment when the royal party was out of sight of cheering, flag waving people. They stood on the banks of road cuttings, in glades of bush, in paddocks and on hayfields. They brought babies in arms and sometimes their dogs, cats and pet lambs as well. Even the lambs were decked out in red, white and blue.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip toured the Karapiro dam in 1954 and visited the control room.
Mailboxes were emblazoned with streamers, cream stands became grandstands, and a great profusion of flowers in patriotic shades adorned hedges and grass verges. Banners stretched across roads saying ‘Welcome’ then Good-bye’.
Te Awamutu provided a formal reception, but it was formal only in name. From one borough boundary to the other people stood along the streets cheering, yelling and waving. Children were assembled in their hundreds on the Te Awamutu Domain, giving the Queen and the Duke a tremendous reception.
A Te Awamutu man driving a high-powered sporting saloon car on the Taupo–Rotorua highway lost control of it on a bend on the Taupo side of the Ohāki turn-off. Tracks left by the car showed that after leaving the road it had travelled over 50 yards along a cleared break in the scrub parallel with the road, and then hurtled across a ditch nine feet wide and five feet deep, coming to rest in a tall ti-tree some 20 feet beyond. The front wheels were smashed backward, front of the car completely buckled in, windscreen shattered, and the engine mountings broken. The two occupants were taken to Rotorua hospital with moderate injuries.
J Oakes of Te Awamutu was first home in the grueling Round-the-Gorges 10- mile cycle race held by the Christchurch Amateur Cycling Club. Sixty two riders from as far afield as Hamilton and Invercargill took part. When the riders started it appeared as if they were going to have to contend with a fairly strong wind but as the race progressed the wind dropped, and conditions became ideal.
Scenes from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s New Year’s Day 1954 visit to Cambridge. Photos: Cambridge Museum
About half the journey was ridden over shingle roads making riding very hard, especially on the upward grades. Punctures were frequent, some riders having as many as four. Unfortunately a great number of car drivers who followed the race showed little consideration for the riders. Some passed them at speeds of 40 miles an hour and more, throwing up great clouds of dust, reducing the riders’ view of the road ahead to a few yards. The 10 bunches kept fairly well together until they reached Glentui, where the heavy shingle and steep grades caused them to break up badly, with many drifting back, and from then on, the riders were strung out all along the road. Oakes soon gathered in the front bunch, and in the final bid for the line had no difficulty in holding off a strong challenge from the other four riders to win in the good time of 4hr 51min 50sec.
Scenes from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s New Year’s Day 1954 visit to Cambridge. Photos: Cambridge Museum
The Queen and Duke received a formal civic welcome and dined in the Town Hall. Scenes from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s New Year’s Day 1954 visit to Cambridge. Photos: Cambridge Museum
Queen Elizabeth II in Te Awamutu, 1954. Queen Elizabeth is walking onto the stage and directly behind her, partially hidden, is Mayor Clifton Frank Jacobs. At the bottom of the stairs Prince Philip is talking to Mayoress Veda Jacobs. © Te Awamutu Museum.
