Queen Sālote Tupou III arrives in the UK for Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation

Queen Sālote had left Tonga on 23 March 1953 to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London. After a long journey, England came into view on 17 May, and she disembarked at Southampton on 18 May. The coronation was set to take place on 2 June.

Queen Sālote attracted attention from the moment she set foot on British soil. The newspapers were delighted by her willingness to cooperate and she was the only other reigning female monarch. Sālote enjoyed it all immensely, as can be seen in the diary she kept throughout the trip. Queen Sālote was accompanied by her daughter-in-law, the wife of the Crown Prince, Mataʻaho.

Upon arrival in Southampton, the party was greeted by Sir Arthur Bromley on behalf of the government. They had afternoon tea in the VIP lounge while their luggage was being brought ashore. They travelled to London by train and settled into a house at 26 Weymouth Street. It wasn’t very big, but Sālote liked it, and she wrote that it was “a real British house, not a newly built one.”¹ She had a full schedule ahead of her, even before coronation day. She wrote, “Inwardly, I said goodness gracious when I saw the daily programme and what was to be done. I was really dizzy. I quickly remembered that is what the great world is like, and not the small, comfortable Tonga where one pleases with the time. The world is controlled by time. I gladly received the programme and decided to carry out to completion what had been planned … It appears so colossal I was a stranger to it.”²

The day after her arrival, Sālote attended a cricket match and had lunch with the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort. The next day, she attended the Chelsea Flower Show, which she called “wonderful and heavenly.”³ She visited hospitals, attended concerts, went to the theatre, saw Margot Fonteyn dance at Covent Garden and visited the Greenwich Naval College and Museum. She heard Dr Sangster preach at Westminster Central Hall and ended the month of May with a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, where she and Mataʻaho were introduced to Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family. They “returned home full of joy.”⁴

One newspaper wrote, “During her short stay here, Queen Sālote, whose genial dignity matches her proportions, has won an extraordinary quantity of affection from the British people.”⁵

The day before the coronation, Sālote made a broadcast on the BBC while Mataʻaho’s taʻovala (Tongan dress) was being prepared for the coronation by her aunt. Sālote wrote, “It had started to rain while it was still daylight, just light showers, but the streets were packed with people [camped in the streets, waiting for the coronation procession]. Later in the night, it rained more heavily.”⁶

1. Sālote: Queen of Paradise by Margaret Hixon p.143
2. Sālote: Queen of Paradise by Margaret Hixon p.143
3. Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900–1965 by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem p.214
4. Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900–1965 by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem p.241
5. Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900–1965 by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem p.241-242
6. Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900–1965 by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem p.242