The Last Hurrah: South Africa and the Royal Tour of 1947 by Graham Viney is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

‘The literary surprise of the decade … A story about a country most of us will barely recognise, teetering on the brink of convulsive change and yet almost united, at least for a moment, by love for a king and queen who weren’t really ours.’
– Rian Malan, author of My Traitor’s Heart

‘A colourful and entertaining sociopolitical account of the royal tour that transfixed South Africa.’
– Richard Steyn, author of Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness and Louis Botha: A Man Apart

From February to April 1947, South Africa welcomed King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and the princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret. The Royal Family travelled many thousands of kilometres across the country in the specially commissioned White Train.

Graham Viney’s descriptions of the tour’s highlights allow the reader to follow this royal progress. In vivid prose, he provides a fascinating analysis of a fractious society on the threshold of momentous change.

The Last Hurrah also captures the political controversy surrounding the tour. There was resistance, initially, from black and Indian nationalist politicians and, throughout, from Afrikaner Nationalists. Only a year later, in 1948, Smuts’s government was defeated in a general election, a victory won essentially on DF Malan’s racist ticket.

But the tour had truly been a last hurrah, a show of Empire solidarity and a recognition of South Africa’s contribution to the Allied cause during World War II, and specifically that of Prime Minister Jan Smuts. Wherever the Royal Family went, South Africans turned out in their thousands to cheer and welcome them.

The Last Hurrah draws on sources from far and wide, including the Royal Archives at Windsor, and includes a selection of previously unpublished photographs of the Royal Family on tour.

About the author

Graham Viney was educated at the Diocesan College (Bishops), Cape Town, and Oriel College, Oxford, where he read International Relations. He runs an international design company. In addition to numerous papers and articles he has written two books, Colonial Houses of South Africa and The Cape of Good Hope, 1806–1872.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

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