Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in London on this date in 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII. The Canadian Premier’s visit came only five-years after he had taken London and all the leaders of the British Empire by storm at the time of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. A Colonial Conference was also held in London during the coronation season and Laurier gently rebuffed British efforts at calling for more central control of the Dominions.
King Edward VII would remain on the throne until his death in 1910 when he would be succeeded by King George V.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.