The monarchy is more than the monarch: Australian perceptions of the public life of Edward, Prince of Wales, 1916-1936

Abstract

This thesis contributes to present inter-war historiography on Australians and the monarchy by providing a narrative for the previously under-researched evolution of the public life of Edward, Prince of Wales, in this country between approximately 1916 and 1936. The objectives are twofold: firstly, to provide an Australian account of what has been most commonly presented as a public life that resonated mainly within Britain, and in doing so illustrate the potency of the relationship that existed between Australia, as one of the Dominions, and the Crown. Secondly, through identifying the changing nature of Edward’s appeal as espoused by the public, the press and political rulers over time, I aim to establish fresh insights into the localised preoccupations of Australian society and contribute to a greater understanding of the centrality of the monarch in the inter-war imperial imagination. I conclude that Edward’s supposedly democratic characteristics both enhanced and conflicted with inter-war Australian ideals of nationhood, and were founded on a fixed suite of expectations for the private and public life of the monarch. His persona was remarkably disassociated from religious or class-based affiliations, meaning that his personal appeal flourished in public, press and political perceptions. Nonetheless, I establish that contemporary Australians perceived the monarch as central to the survival of the Empire. Although the legal and political elements of the Kingship were flexible according to the best interests of Australian independence, traditional attitudes prevailed in matters of sexual modernity. Ultimately, for Australians, as part of an Empire caught between the devastation of two world wars, the survival of the monarchy prevailed over the survival of the monarch.