New Zealand's first royal visit

The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, arrived in Wellington as captain of the frigate HMS Galatea. The first member of the British royal family to visit New Zealand, he was greeted in verse as well as with haka, speeches and bunting.

‘Star of England! rise in brightness

In our mellow Southern sky,

A thousand eyes now dance with lightness

As thy looked for hour draws nigh.

Alfred! hearts to thee are turning

As the sun-flower greets the day,

High emotions, swelling, burning

O’er an infant nation play.

Be a people‘s joy abounding

In each festal hall and home,

When the cannon’s boom abounding

Shall announce our Prince has come.’

Prince Alfred Ernest Albert made three separate visits to New Zealand between the autumn of 1869 and summer of 1870-71. A planned visit in 1868 had been cancelled after the prince was shot in the back in Sydney by a gunman with Fenian sympathies. During his 1869 visit he spent nearly a week in the capital, enduring a round of official functions and enjoying a pig hunt before sailing on to Nelson, where he had a day at the races. He subsequently visited Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland, where he received 150 Māori chiefs and shot pūkeko and pigeons with gusto.

The 24-year-old Duke, the second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, was known as Affie by his family and considered ‘the handsomest among his numerous kin’. His commission was in part an attempt to keep him out of trouble with the ladies closer to home. The Duke and his vessel returned briefly to Wellington in late August 1870 and made a final visit to these shores in December 1870.

The Galatea district in Bay of Plenty was named in honour of his visit. The name was applied first to a redoubt built in 1869 by the Armed Constabulary, who were hunting for the Māori leader Te Kooti in the nearby Urewera region. Remnants of this and a later redoubt can be seen in a reserve on Kopuriki Rd north of Murupara.