The drop of a brick
In April 1934, the English Duke of Gloucester, Prince Henry, third son of King George V and Queen Mary, was handed the task of an imperial tour of Australia and New Zealand by default.
Henry’s younger brother, George, told his parents that he was too ‘strained’ to visit the Antipodes after his African tour. The purpose of the tour ‘down under’ was to celebrate Victoria’s centenary, and to unveil and dedicate Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney.
Henry, in his media releases, welcomed the chance ‘to meet the Anzacs who made military history’ and ‘to be charmed by the land of Adam Lindsay Gordon and the Melbourne Cup’. For most Australians, the tour was a pleasant diversion from the effects of the Great Depression. Excitement reached a frenzy at times. Editors of newspapers even urged property owners to clean the facades of their buildings to give Henry ‘a favourable impression’. One newspaper thought such public works would ‘relieve the burden of unemployment’.
One of the many places
