| Brief Description |
This cream coloured saucer has a thin red band around its outer edge and inside and an image of a crown with IMPERIAL HOTEL / WANGANUI in red. There is no maker's name.
On his visit to New Zealand in 1920, HRH the Prince of Wales arrived in Wanganui and was entertained and feted at many different events. He was accommodated at the Imperial Hotel in Victoria Avenue, of which he complained bitterly. In a letter to his mistress at the time, Freda Dudley Ward, in the collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library he wrote from the Imperial Hotel, “such a pompous address beloved, but it’s really a miserable hole; no electric light & the hotel boilers elected to burst before dinner so no baths & a vewy nasty dinner!! But we are all pretty peeved tonight as we’ve really had a desperately twying day...”.
This saucer is one of many pieces of china and cutlery "souvenired" from every venue that HRH visited during his stay in Wanganui; he even balanced his cup of tea on it! Mrs Edith Dornbusch was a waitress at the Imperial Hotel. She kept the saucer as a souvenir of the royal visit, ''slipping it into her pocket''.
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