Remembering Prince Philip’s close connections, visits to Australia
Prince Philip visited Australia an astonishing 35 times. Here’s the story of the Prince and the Land Down Under.
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Prince Philip visited Australia 32 times during his royal career – 16 times on solo trips without the Queen.
The prince, who has died in London aged 99, was a frequent visitor to our shores, sometimes spending months here, and occasionally taking a few days off to enjoy sporting events.
In 1954, he joined the new Queen when she became the first reigning monarch to visit Australia, and the pair spent two months touring the continent, undertaking an average of five public engagements every day.
A private incident occurred during the visit which didn’t emerge in public for more than 50 years, when the young couple had an argument during their visit, and Prince Philip burst out of the door of the remote homestead they were staying in the Yarra Ranges, a furious Queen hurling a tennis racket after him.
The incident was captured by a startled news crew, but the footage never saw the light of the day, and it wasn’t revealed until 2011, when royal reporter Robert Hardman included it in his book.
Philip’s next visit was a solo one, when he travelled to Melbourne to officially open the Olympic Games in 1956.
He also he made three earlier trips during his military career, when he served in the Royal Navy in World War Two.
His first visit was in 1940 as a Midshipman, aboard the battleship HMS Ramillies, when he spent two months with the ship in Fremantle, Sydney and Melbourne.
In early 1945, he visited Sydney as First Lieutenant of the destroyer HMS Whelp, then returned in May and June of that year to Melbourne and Sydney while the ship underwent a refit before joining the British Pacific Fleet for the Japanese surrender.
Following his 1947 marriage to then-princess Elizabeth, Prince Philip gave up his military career and became a royal consort and representative.
In that capacity, Buckingham Palace said the Duke had made 16 solo trips to Australia over a period of 42 years.
These visits were in 1956, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1973 (twice), 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1986 (twice), 1990 and 1998.
He made a further 16 visits accompanying Queen Elizabeth, in 1954, 1963, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2006, and their final visit in 2011.
The pair gave up long-haul flying after the visit in 2011, when they attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth at the end of an 11-day tour which also took in Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne.
The Queen was 85 years old at the time and Prince Philip was 90.
Prince Philip’s trip in 1956 was a highlight for him, when he officially opened the Olympic Games before 100,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
He was warmly received as he was driven around the athletics track in the back of an open-topped Rolls-Royce, wearing his military uniform.
A sports enthusiast, he had expressed interest several years earlier in attending the Games, and his diary was structured to give him five full days without him attending an official function, leaving him free to attend as a spectator – a move that would be unthinkable now with the huge demands on royal visitors.
The visit also helped brush over rumours that were percolating back in the UK that he might have been involved in an illicit affair. The rumours were never proved.
He was back in Australia again in 1962 to open the Empire Games (later the Commonwealth Games) in Perth, and made further solo trips in 1965 (to open the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra), and again in 1967 and 1968 for a Duke of Edinburgh Study Conference, according to the National Archives.
Prince Philip joined the Queen in 1970, when they visited to recognise the bicentenary of early explorer Captain James Cook’s first sailing up the East Coast of Australia. They spent 34 days visiting the ACT, NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania. This was also the trip that sparked the “royal walkabout’’ – the practise of royals going to meet crowds in the street.
It gives the royals a chance to meet ordinary members of the public, and is a tradition which
continues to this day.
After his visit in 1973, Prince Philip was furious with the decision by the Tasmanian government to flood the pristine alpine area known as Lake Pedder as part of a hydro-electric scheme.
“The Tasmanian government simply does not understand the point of conservation,” he wrote to then-prime minister Gough Whitlam in April 1973.
While almost every moment of Philip’s time on Australian soil was incident free, in March 2000 he was hit with a tomato as he walked through a park in Launceston, Tasmania, the projectile clipping his hat and causing no damage. Teenagers were thought to have lobbed the tomato as a prank.
It was on a tour in 2002 that he asked an Aboriginal elder, Ivan Brim, in Cairns: “Do you still throw spears at each other?’’ to which Mr Brim jokingly replied yes, they did. The Brim family later said they were surprised at the comment but not offended.
In 2006, Philip and the Queen were back in Australia to open the Commonwealth Games in
Melbourne, travelling on a tram through the city, and holding a lunch for 1200 people at the Royal Exhibition Buildings in Carlton, the site where Australia’s parliament first sat.
In 2015, it was the decision by Tony Abbott to bestow a knighthood on Prince Philip during the Australia Day honours that ultimately led to the downfall of Mr Abbott as prime minister later that year, amid accusations he was out of touch. Mr Abbott later said the decision had been a “captain’s call’’ and was a “stuff-up.’’
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