Gippsland's royal visitors

I'm something of a constitutional monarchist, which means that I like a bit of historical pomp and circumstance; the Brits do it well. It is also because I know we are a free country, a mature country, and we don't need to prove that by becoming a republic. Let me add that I know many won't agree with me, but in a Westminster democracy we are allowed to have and express our own views.
Now, having offended about half of you, this story is essentially a list of the monarchs we've had as Gippsland and grew and developed.
George III was crowned in 1760 and ruled for 59 years and three months. It was during his reign that our east coast was discovered, that New South Wales was colonised and, closer to home, the first attempts at settlement in Gippsland were made. Collins had a settlement at Sorrento in 1802, but it failed and he decamped to Tasmania.
In 1826 Captains Wright and Weatherall commanded a small expedition which tried to create a permanent settlement on French Island, at Rhyll. The did not work out so they moved across to Settlement Point, near today's Grantville. In 1828 the settlement was closed and everyone went back to Sydney.
That settlement was during the reign of George IV, not the greatest of kings as it happened, and I doubt that he ever heard of, or cared, about what was happening in Gippsland. He would have known little and cared less about the sealers and very occasional whalers in Bass Strait, or about Hume and Hovell's expeditions and discoveries. Apart from the 1902-03 settlement at Sorrento there was not much happening in Gippsland – in those times Britain's colonies were intended to be sources of income, not expenses.
George IV came to the throne when his father, George III, died in 1820. He was what an unsympathetic person, or a republican, might have called a ratbag. His only legitimate child was Princess Charlotte, named for his mother, Queen Charlotte. The Princess was thus heir to the throne but she died in 1817 and the next heir to the throne became George's brother, Prince Frederick. When Frederick died in 1827 he was childless, so the crown eventually fell to a younger brother, William, in 1830. He became William IV.
George IV did have the important historical win of beating Napoleon and finally letting Australians feel free of the possibility of a French invasion, once a real threat. A few decades later we were frightened that the Russians were coming. It seems that Australia was a rather long voyage away and not really worth the effort.
From 1830 to 1837 William IV was our King but there was not too much happening in Gippsland. Most of what was happening was very unofficial so it was poorly recorded. In the late 1830s wattlebark strippers were at work, taking the bark back to Hobart's tanneries. There were still sealers and whalers in our waters and sometimes working from the shore.
Then along came Victoria, the Queen, not the state, though that followed fairly soon after. Alexandrina Victoria got her fist name from the Tsar Alexander but she insisted that it be dropped.
During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840 (the Queen's, that is), in the first few months of her marriage to Albert there was an assassination attempt on her life. The assassin fired two shots at her but she was unharmed and he was later found not guilty because of insanity. He was committed to an insane asylum and then was sent to live in, of all places, Australia.
Victoria issued its own stamps from 1850 and the subject was, of course, Queen Victoria. She was shown seated on the Coronation Chair and the stamps were produced in Melbourne. Later we fell into line with the British tradition and showed the heads of monarchs in profile. We continued to issue Victorian stamps until 1913, when the first Australian stamps appeared.
Edward VII got onto Victorian stamps in 1901, the year his mother died, but he seems to have appeared only on the one and two pound stamps, for some reason. Edward VII did not last long, unfortunately. He died in 1910 and was replaced by George V, who ruled until 1926, our king through the Great War. George V was the first monarch to use the Windsor name.
There is an old story that George V was asked by Cunard Line executives whether they could name their new ship after "England's greatest Queen", meaning Victoria (the Cunard line ships all had names ending in 'ia') and George V replied that his wife would be delighted. Cunard had little choice but to call Hull 534 "Queen Mary".
George V sent his son, the Prince of Wales, out here on a Royal Visit in 1920, mainly to thank Australia for its support in the Great War. On that visit the Prince stayed in Beaconsfield for a few days and the old 'Gippsland Track' formally became the Princes Highway on 10 August 1920. I think this naming ceremony took place out at the Calder memorial, where Lardner's Track meets the Highway, but I'm not sure. The ceremony also marked the official opening of the Highway. That is an interesting concept. The road had been there for a long time before 1920.
The Prince of Wales ascended to the throne in due course as Edward VIII. A small aside is that the two Royal Trains of that decade (the Duke of York came out here in 1927) were hauled by A2 class locomotives, and A2s 995 and 996 had the sad honour of hauling the last broad-gauge Spirit of Progress into Melbourne on 16 April 1962.
Edward VIII was our King for only 11 months. He abdicated so he could marry Wallis Simpson, previously divorced twice and thus 'ineligible'. He put love ahead of duty, but don't judge him if you have not been in his shoes, so to speak.
His brother became George VI, much to his own amazement, and restored the monarchy's respectability. He was a modest naval officer who refused to leave London during the blitz to seek safety.
George VI married Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, known to us all as the Queen Mother. He was King until he died of lung cancer in1952, and this rather wonderful couple had two children, the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was to become our Queen, Elizabeth II, that year and she ruled for a staggering 70 years, seven more than Queen Victoria. Her eldest son is now our King Charles III, a most gracious 'ruler'. Tis column is intended to seal with history, though, and not with the present.
On another day I'll talk about the most disastrous royal tour we've ever seen, in 1867.
Let me just say "God save the King" and close.