King's Official Birthday

In Jersey, the lieutenant-governor hosts a reception for the public at Government House to mark the Queen's Official Birthday, at which he announces the names of recipients of Birthday Honours

The Queen's Official Birthday, the Queen's Birthday, or the Sovereign's birthday is the day on which the birthday of the monarch of the Commonwealth realms is officially celebrated in both some of the realms and in Fiji, which is now a republic. The word Queen is replaced by King during the reign of a male sovereign.

The exact date of the celebration varies from country to country, and generally does not fall on the day of the monarch's actual birthday, that of the current sovereign, Elizabeth II, being 21 April. In some cases, it is an official public holiday, sometimes coinciding with the celebration of other events. Most Commonwealth realms release a Birthday Honours List at this time.

The sovereign's birthday was first officially marked in the United Kingdom, beginning in 1748. Thenceforth, the date changed throughout the British Empire and later the Commonwealth, either according to different royal proclamations issued by the sovereign or governor or by statute laws passed by the local parliament.

Australia

Australia, except for Western Australia, observes the Queen's Birthday on the second Monday in June, marking it with a public holiday that also serves as the opening weekend to Australia's snow season, though it is quite common for there to be no ski-worthy snow until later in the month. Because Western Australia celebrates its Foundation Day on the first Monday in June, the Governor of Western Australia proclaims the day on which the state will observe the Queen's Birthday, based on school terms and the Perth Royal Show. There is no firm rule to determine this date before it is proclaimed, though it is usually the last Monday of September or the first Monday of October.

The day has been celebrated since 1788, when Governor Arthur Phillip declared a holiday to mark the birthday of the King of Great Britain. Until 1936 it was held on the actual birthday of the Monarch, but after the death of George V it was decided to keep the date on the second Monday in June.

The only civic occasion of note associated with the day is the release of the "Queen's Birthday honours list," in which new members of the Order of Australia and other Australian honours are named. This occurs on the date observed in the Eastern States, not the date observed in Western Australia. The Australian Football League clubs Collingwood Magpies and Melbourne Demons have traditionally played a game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year since 2001, and sporadically before that.

The Queen's Birthday weekend and Empire Day, 24 May, were long the traditional times for public fireworks displays in Australia. Although they still occur, the tradition has recently been overshadowed by larger New Year's Eve fireworks, as the sale of fireworks to the public was progressively banned by the states in the 1980s, and by the Australian Capital Territory on 24 August 2009. The Northern Territory is the only state or territory to still sell fireworks to the public.

Canada

A royal proclamation issued on 31 January 1957 established the first Monday before 25 May as the Sovereign's birthday (in French: fête du souverain), the date on which the reigning Canadian monarch's official birthday would be celebrated. The monarch's birthday had been observed in Canada since 1845, when the parliament of the Province of Canada passed a statute to officially recognize Queen Victoria's birthday, 24 May. Over the ensuing decades after Victoria's death in 1901 (at which time the Monday before 25 May became known by law as Victoria Day), the official date in Canada of the reigning sovereign's birthday changed through various royal proclamations: for Edward VII it continued by yearly proclamation to be observed on 24 May, but was 3 June for George V, 23 June for Edward VIII (their actual birthdays), and various days between 20 May and 14 June through George VI's reign as king of Canada. The first official birthday of Elizabeth II, whose actual birthday is 21 April, was the last to be celebrated in June; the haphazard format was abandoned in 1952, when the Governor-General-in-Council moved Empire Day and an amendment to the law moved Victoria Day both to the Monday before 25 May, and the monarch's official birthday in Canada was by regular vice-regal proclamations made to fall on this same date every year between 1953 and 1957, when the link was made permanent.

King George VI in Ottawa, Ontario, on his official birthday, Victoria Day 1939

The reigning Canadian monarch has been in Canada for his or her official birthday twice. The first time was 20 May 1939, when King George VI was on a coast-to-coast tour of Canada and his official birthday was celebrated with a Trooping the Colour ceremony on Parliament Hill. The second time was when Queen Elizabeth II was in Canada from 17 – 25 May 2005, to mark the centennial of the entries of Saskatchewan and Alberta into Confederation; no government-initiated events were organized to acknowledge the official birthday.

The two holidays are in law entirely distinct except for being appointed to be observed on the same day. The Queen's official birthday is marked by the firing of an artillery salute in the national and provincial capitals and the flying of the Royal Union Flag on buildings belonging to the federal Crown if there is a second pole already available.

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the holiday is the first Monday in June. There are few actual celebrations of the Queen's birthday on the day, apart from the Queen's Birthday Honours list. There have been proposals to replace the holiday with Matariki (Māori New Year) as an official holiday. In 2001, The Māori Language Commission "began to reclaim Matariki, or Aotearoa Pacific New Year, as an important focus for Māori language regeneration."

In June 2009 Māori Party MP Rahui Katene was unsuccessful in having her member's bill 'Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill' drawn from the ballot. The draft legislation would have fixed the date of a public holiday using the New Moon in June.

Mayor of Waitakere City Bob Harvey supported the call to make Matariki a public holiday to replace Queen's Birthday, along with the Republican Movement, which found none of New Zealand's local authorities held celebrations for Queen's Birthday, but many held celebrations for Matariki.

The idea of renaming the Queen's birthday weekend to Hillary weekend, after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to ascend Mount Everest, was raised in 2009.

United Kingdom

It has been celebrated in the United Kingdom since 1748. In the United Kingdom there is no public holiday for it, but King Edward VII (1901–10) moved it to the 1st, 2nd, or (rarely) 3rd Saturday in June in the hope of better weather.

In the United Kingdom, the Queen's Official Birthday is now celebrated on the first, second, or third Saturday in June, although it is rarely the third. It is marked in London by the ceremony of Trooping the Colour, which is also known as the Queen's Birthday Parade. The Queen's Official Birthday does not coincide with when she was born. Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910, and whose birthday was on 9 November, in autumn, moved the ceremony to summer in the hope of good weather. The Queen celebrates her actual birthday on 21 April.

The list of Birthday Honours is also announced at the time of the UK Official Birthday celebrations. In British diplomatic missions the day is treated as the National Day of the United Kingdom. Although it is not celebrated as a specific public holiday in the UK (as it is not a working day), civil servants are given a "privilege day" at this time of year, which is often merged with the Spring Bank Holiday (last Monday in May) to create a long weekend, which was partly created to celebrate the monarch's birthday.

Other countries and territories

The Queen's official birthday is a public holiday in Gibraltar and most other British overseas territories, but in 2008, the Government of Bermuda decided that it would cease to be a public holiday in 2009, despite protests from people in the island, who signed a petition calling for its retention. The Falkland Islands celebrate the actual day of the Queen's birth, 21 April, as June occurs in late autumn or winter in the Falklands. It is a public holiday in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha and there it falls on the 3rd Monday in April.

It ceased to be a public holiday in Hong Kong after the territory's handover to the People's Republic of China in 1997.

Fiji also still celebrates the Queen's Official Birthday, along with the Prince of Wales's Birthday, since although the Queen ceased to be head of state in 1987, she remains recognised by the Great Council of Chiefs as traditional Queen or paramount chief of Fiji.

In addition to Fiji, other countries of the South Pacific that celebrate the Queen’s Birthday include Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

See also

• Trooping the Colour
• Grand Duke's Official Birthday
• Koninginnedag

External links

• BBC News article of 2001 about the date of the Queen's Official Birthday in the UK