Skip to content

Local resident Betty Corbett shares photos of Queen’s 1959 Royal Tour visit to Hope

Never before seen photo shows Queen Elizabeth II second official visit to Hope
30520414_web1_221007-HSL-Queenphotos-photo_1
Queen Elizabeth II with village chairman, later mayor, Paul Scherle, to the left of her. (Betty Corbett)

Local resident Betty Corbett shares never before seen photos of Queen Elizabeth II during her 1959 visit to Hope.

Taken in 1959, eight years after her last visit to Hope as princess, the photos were given to Corbett and her husband, former mayor Roy Corbett, just after Elizabeth completed her second royal tour of Canada as the queen of England.

“We didn’t become a town till the 60s. She came in [1959],” says Corbett who was married to former mayor Roy Corbett. “She got off and she walked all around and shook hands of all the people. Philip was with her and it was a wonderful experience.”

In 1959, six years after being crowned queen and two years after her first official visit as Queen, Elizabeth completed a 45-day tour of Canada. During this tour, she and her husband, Royal Consort Prince Philip II, visited every province and territory as well as multiple Canadian cities. This included the British Columbian cities of Kamloops, Vancouver, Victoria, and Hope.

“It was a different town back then,” says Corbett. “Several people think that the Queen only came here [in 1951] but she didn’t. She was here [in 1959]. That was her big year when she went all the way across Canada…she stopped in Revelstoke and Sicamous, and Kamloops. She was in the east in New Brunswick and she was in Quebec and Saskatchewan. And they were six weeks in Canada, right across the country.”

Elizabeth died on Sept. 8, at the age of 96, after 70 years on the throne. Her death sparked many reactions from around the world, especially from former colonies and communities still grappling with the effects of colonization.

READ MORE: Looking back at Queen Elizabeth’s and Prince Philip’s historic visit to Hope by rail


@KemoneMoodley
kemone.moodley@hopestandard.com

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.



Kemone Moodley

About the Author: Kemone Moodley

I began working with the Hope Standard on August 2022.
Read more