Hamilton Park has a long history with the Royal Family.
Glasgow Fair weekend of 1947 was a record-breaking one at the racecourse for two major reasons.
On Friday, July 18, Hamilton Park created racing history by staging the first evening meeting ever to be held in Britain.
And the following day, a crowd of 21,000 flocked to the racecourse for a visit by King George VI and Princess Margaret Rose – but the real focal point was Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten (later Prince Philip), who were making one of their first public appearances.
Few people in Scotland had ever seen the young lieutenant before he made his appearance in Hamilton.
It was stated in the Hamilton Advertiser that ‘it is probable that the attendance record for Hamilton Park will have been smashed’.
The Royal parade route went through Motherwell Cross and through Hamilton Cross, on their way to Cadzow Street and the racecourse.
In spite of the fact that it was an informal visit, many houses and shops on the parade route were decorated with flags and bunting, with cheering crowds and flag-waving children.
One of his Prince Philip’s first-ever visits with the then-Princess Elizabeth would have been when King George VI visited Hamilton Park Racecourse on that day in 1947, with the couple and his other daughter, Margaret Rose.
Elizabeth, aged 21, had officially announced her engagement to Naval Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten just nine days earlier at Buckingham Palace, and they were married at Westminster Abbey on November 20 of that year.
The couple had met in July 1939 at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, Devon, and it’s believed to have been love at first sight for the young princess.
It is also believed that they unofficially got engaged in 1946, but waited until Elizabeth was 21 before officially announcing it.
Philip, who was a member of the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg and was born into the Greek and Danish royal families, renounced his Greek royal title in order to marry and was 26 when they got engaged.
