History

In 1954 Queen Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit Australia. She arrived on the Royal Yacht SS Gothic and set foot on Australian soil on 3 February at Farm Cove, Sydney. The Australian tour was part of a wider tour throughout the Commonwealth following the Queen’s coronation in 1953. A visit the previous year had been planned for her late father, King George VI, but his death in February 1952 meant the visit was delayed until after the new Queen’s coronation.

Queen Elizabeth was accompanied by her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The royal couple travelled through New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The extensive tour was met with an enthusiastic and passionate public response, and enabled an estimated seventy-five per cent of the Australian population to see the Queen at least once during her visit. Highlights of the tour included opening the third session of the twentieth Parliament in the Senate chamber at Parliament House on 15 February 1954.