As Jubilee fever hits the UK over the next few weeks we thought we would take a closer look at the Royal Family and in particular their long standing connections with Africa. Africa has surprisingly played an important part in the Queen’s life in particular, with several major events taking place on African soil.
The Royal connection to Africa really started under the days of the British Empire when the first explorers set about claiming land for Britain. Across Africa there are still many remnants of this time bearing the name of the Queen – Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe and the Victoria and Albert Dock in Cape Town being just two of them.
Since the Victorian era our current Royal Family has had many more trips to Africa. In 1947 Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 21st birthday on a royal tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). In a speech she paid tribute to the people of the Empire and Commonwealth and dedicated her life to serving them. The Queen did not visit South Africa again until 1995, after the end of apartheid and they had had their first democratic elections. During this historic visit, South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth, which it had left in 1961. South Africa also hosted the Commonwealth Heads of State Meeting for the first time in 1999 and the Queen attended.
Kenya became a part of the history of the British monarchy on 1st February, 1952, when the then Princess travelled to Kenya as part of a Commonwealth tour. The tour started normally enough. Elizabeth and Phillip were greeted by the Governor of Kenya, Sir Philip Mitchell, then driven to Government House where they attended a garden party. They also visited Nairobi National Park, and stayed at the Sagana hunting lodge which was a wedding gift from South Africa. The Queen apparently loved game viewing and was also enjoying the chance to escape from everyday life on the trip. Then on the 6th February everything changed with the death of King George VI.
The Princess was staying at Treetops Hotel near Mount Kenya at the time of her father’s death. It was from there that she flew back to Britain and became Queen Elizabeth II two days later on the 8th February 1952. She was crowned the following year in 1953. Her personal safari guide and big-game expert Jim Corbett famously wrote in the Treetops visitors’ book: “For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a princess and, after having what she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen.” In those days Treetops was a rickety-looking, basic two-bedroom safari lodge built high above the ground on stilts with a viewing platform overlooking the habitat of elephant and rhino. Quite an adventurous choice for a member of the Royal family!
Kenya is still popular with the Royals today as it was near Mount Kenya that Prince William proposed to Katherine Middleton on 20th October 2010. Kate said in an interview at the time: “He’s a true romantic and we had a wonderful holiday . . . it was out there in a very quiet lodge and it was very romantic.”