Queen Sālote Tupou III of Tonga would hardly know her mother as she tragically passed away on 24 April 1902 at the age of just 23. Little Sālote was just two years old.
Queen Lavinia Veiongo Fotu had gone to visit Princess ʻOfakivavaʻu, who had once been considered as a bride for Queen Lavinia’s husband, King George Tupou II. She had contracted tuberculosis and eventually died in December 1901. Queen Lavinia also attended her funeral and may have caught the tuberculosis that would eventually kill her from Princess ʻOfakivavaʻu. However, she had been in delicate health since her daughter’s birth.
She travelled to Fafa Island, where the sea air and a seafood diet would hopefully improve her health. However, she returned to the palace at Nukuʻalofa in the middle of April without any improvement to her health. Because of her poor health, she and her husband declined to attend the coronation of King Edward VII in London. Queen Lavinia took to her bed and was able to receive visitors but her husband likely knew she wasn’t going to get better as he ordered work to begin on a “great terraced tomb.”1
Queen Lavinia died on 24 April 1902 at the palace. George was deeply affected by her death, and he honoured her with an immense funeral. She lay in state for four days and was buried at the royal cemetery of Mala’e Kula. Her husband would later be buried beside her.
The Sydney Morning Herald wrote of Lavinia, “The late queen was the embodiment of good nature and persons of all ranks were assured of a kind and courteous reception at her hands. She even caused Tupou to be a little more attentive to his duties in the matter of the reception of higher chiefs who, in the King’s absence, she would in no wise permit to depart before interviewing Tupou for whom she would send if necessary.”2
By Tongan custom, children are particularly attached to their mother and maternal relatives. Losing her mother was thus especially difficult for young Sālote. She also wasn’t very close to her maternal grandparents, and she did not speak warmly of them.3
Sālote was told that her mother prayed at the Royal Chapel each day at noon and so she often visited the chapel to reflect on her mother’s life.
Two years after Queen Lavinia’s death, a statue of her arrived by steamer from Italy. It was unveiled on her tomb and it cost almost £1000. At the feet of the life-size statue is a small grieving Princess.
In 1952, a new church was opened, which had two stained glass windows; one of them was in memory of Queen Lavinia, and this had been arranged by Sālote.
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