Queen Victoria Statue - Albert Park

Albert Park's old queen, was sculpted by F J Williamson. For decades it provided a focal point for a now forgotten ritual, Empire Day.

Queen Victoria Statue, Albert Park Auckland’s shrine to Britannic identity James Belich calls 1880–1960 ‘recolonisation’, a time when ‘the favourite child traded prolonged adolescence for special access to Mother’s ear, purse, and markets, and for higher living standards’. John Darwin’s less confusing phrase ‘strengthening Britannic identity’ better captures what was a self-generated process, a time when dominions such as New Zealand strengthened their contacts with British culture, keen to ride along on the coat tails of the world’s only superpower. Premier ‘King Dick’ Seddon cut a dash at Victoria’s ornate Jubilee celebrations in London in 1897, we sent troops to fight in South Africa, subsidised the Royal Navy’s Australasian Squadron and welcomed British aristocrats as Governors. A century after the matronly monarch’s death, bronze Victorias stare down from their plinths at Cambridge Terrace (Wellington) and Victoria Square (Christchurch) and a marble one lurks in Queen’s Gardens (Dunedin). Albert Park’s old queen, almost within spitting distance of Belich’s office, was sculpted by F J Williamson and was our first Victoria. For decades it provided a focal point for a now forgotten ritual, Empire Day.

Empire Day had its roots in Canada but from 1903, 24 May, Victoria’s birthday, was celebrated across the Empire as Empire Day, organised here for over 50 years by the Royal Empire Society, the Victoria League and the Committee of the Patriotic Societies of Auckland. When His Excellency was in ‘summer residence’ here, he would preside over a morning ceremony in front of this statue. Later he would make a major speech and attend an Empire Day Ball, held for many years at the Hotel Cargen. Decked out in 18th-century costumes, dancers practised the minuet, popularised by Lady Alice Fergusson in the 1920s.

Empire Day became Commonwealth Day in 1958 and it has almost disappeared from memory, not even celebrated by the pith-helmeted, pennyfarthing-pedalling ‘living Victorian’ brigade in Oamaru. Related places Albert Park has many historic objects: the band rotunda and the Reed Memorial statue, the statue to Helen Boyd, the South African War Memorial, the oaks planted by officers from the American ‘Great White Fleet’ in 1908 and Sir George Grey’s statue, relocated here in 1922.

The canons date from 1879. Although useless by 1941, they were buried for fear they might attract air attacks. They were disinterred in 1977.

© 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean.

Further reading: David Cannadine, Ornamentalism, Allen Lane, London, 2001.